


Guardian

by SonaBeanSidhe



Series: The M Universe [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, almost, and a fluffy monstrosity of a cat, and the cat is still creepy, at least for once you genuinely meant well, atonement isn't possible but he can come pretty close, but you just had to make it creepy, creepy felines, donovans be donovans, even he realizes how absurd that is, in which von rached is handed far more than he actually bargained for, mairead is too perceptive for her own good, nice job breaking it von rached, of course he wouldn't let a silly little thing like death keep himdown, stalking from beyond the grave, the afterlife is weird, this seems to be a universal tag, von rached really doesn't understand basic humanity, von rached the relationship counselor, you almost managed to be sweet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2020-09-13 22:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonaBeanSidhe/pseuds/SonaBeanSidhe
Summary: The afterlife is not what Von Rached expected. Having nearly everything he could want has led to stultifying boredom, until Earth's chief deity bombs into his life and assigns him a task he is in no way prepared for.There's a reason 'may you live in interesting times' is meant as a curse.





	1. Chapter One

Only Von Rached could be _ bored _in the afterlife.

Evidently, his dying actions had earned him a good one, but that was a mixed blessing at best. He had a lab, that somehow always seemed to have what he needed, when he needed it; his flat was exactly as he wished it. Even the weather obeyed his will. It was very nearly everything he could ask for.

And he was so, so _ bored. _

He had no idea how long he’d been here; the rising and setting of the sun happened only according to his whims. It mattered little enough. Nothing he did mattered, and that was the crux of the issue.

With a sigh, he leaned back from his microscope. This lab was a mingling of state-of-the-art and antique — a mix of what he’d left, and what he’d first learned in. Porcelain counters, smooth stone floor, steel fixtures that gleamed beneath the soft gold of Edison bulbs. The microscope, however, was beyond cutting-edge; an Infinity 40X-1000X electron model he had meant to buy and never got round to. He had books upon books of results...that meant nothing. Nothing would ever be done with them; their findings would lead to no other accomplishment.

He stripped his gloves, tossing them in a bin on the way out. Never yet had he actually emptied the bin, though there was no one else to do it for him, and that, perhaps, was what grated the most. Von Rached had always preferred to work in solitude, but at least he had known other people existed. He had, at times, interacted with them, even in the North. Here, he was completely and totally alone.

The hallway was silent as he made his way back to the flat, until a light breeze shifted through the trees outside the open windows. Their whispered susurration was at least something, something aside from the music he listened to in the evenings. No more news broadcasts, however inane, or anything resembling the internet.

“The Twilight Zone,” he said, upon entering the flat. He had a half-memory of an episode that dealt with a criminal who died and seemingly went to heaven — a place filled with all the things that had delighted him in life, like gambling and women, only for him to tire of the fact that he always won, that the women always accepted his advances. Only at the end of the episode was it revealed that he was actually in a very ironic hell. “Perhaps the Gatekeeper wasn't so merciful as I thought.”

His lab coat was tossed upon a chair by the door. It would, he knew, be clean and pressed in the morning. “At least that man had other people,” he muttered, as he assembled a drink. Von Rached himself had seen not a soul since his death, since the Gatekeeper left him in this place. At the time, her words hadn't seemed important, but he became all the more aware of them now:

_ “People can travel,” _ she’d said, _ “through these different afterlives. You can’t yet, but someday you’ll be allowed. Maybe somebody will come visit you.” _

None had done so, but Von Rached was not surprised. His mother was likely in whatever passed for hell, and his father had held no interest in him in life, so why should he do so in death? Sigyn...he knew why Sigyn had stayed away. He had no other family, and he’d certainly never had true friends. He was only a little more alone in death than he’d been in life.

“I am _ not _lonely,” he said. The whiskey he sipped was smooth as satin, and he reflected that at least he could still enjoy physical pleasures. He’d always liked cooking, so it was just as well he could still appreciate what he made, just as he appreciated a fine drink in the evening.

_ Then why do you talk to yourself? _ some small voice asked, from somewhere at the back of his mind. _ Do not say it is to break the silence. Were it only that, you would simply listen to music, or watch a movie, but instead you speak to no one. _

“Oh, shut up,” he snapped. Perhaps he sounded like a lunatic, but after all, it wasn't as though there was anyone to hear him, now was there? He could go as mad as Corwin, and there were none to notice nor judge him.

_ You miss them. _

Von Rached snorted. “Of _ course _I miss them.” He kicked off his shoes when he sank into his armchair (soft dark leather; it would have been extremely expensive in the world of the living.) “Yes, I loved them. Are you happy? Is that what you wish to hear? Even if they never came to learn of who I was to them, the twins would have drifted away — assuming Lorna didn't force them away in the first place. They were my children and I loved them, however poor an excuse for a father-figure I was, in the brief time I had them. And yes, I loved Lorna, so you can shut up about that, too.”

_ And Sigyn? _

“Shut. _ Up. _ ” He turned the television on with rather more vim than necessary, and turned the volume well up. He had no particular program nor movie in mind, so of course it settled on the last thing he’d thought of, and he found himself humming along to the distinctive _ Twilight Zone _ theme. The drink did its work, soothing him as only morphine had ever really done. That vice had not followed him into death. “I am not lonely. I am...purposeless, which is rather worse.”

Mercifully, his mind did shut up, while he scrolled through his program list. He suspected some of the documentaries it offered had yet to be made, and possibly never would be, given the state of the world when he left it. Unlike many he’d watched in life, these seemed to be actually accurate.

He settled on a program about South American wildlife that seemed to be new, and attempted to calm his mind. Perhaps this really was an ironic hell.

“Mrow?”

The sound was so quiet and so alien that at first he questioned if he’d heard it at all. It repeated itself, more insistently, and he sat up to find what was possibly a cat staring up at him with blue eyes the size and shape of quarters. Perhaps there was a face in there as well; it was impossible to determine, given the creature seemed to be made of midnight-black fluff.

Von Rached blinked. There were no animals in this place, no birds nor squirrels nor even any insects. There had certainly, until now, been no felines, let alone one that stared at him so insistently.

He sighed. He had no feelings on cats one way or the other — pets had not been a feature of his childhood, and he’d never felt the need to keep one as an adult. This one, he posited, was the Lady’s doing, and he wished he knew why.

“Yes, feline,” he said, when it meowed again, and sprang up onto his armchair. If it was in fact the Lady’s creature, there was no point at all in sending it away. “Yes, I see you.” While some unacknowledged part of him had wished for a companion, a cat would not have been his first choice — or anywhere on the list, come to that. At least the creature was honestly somewhat unsettling, rather than a nauseatingly cute kitten.

The creature’s stare practically demanded that he pet it, so pet he did. It was extremely soft, though he hoped it came with a cat brush, because that amount of fluff was a mat-in-waiting.

A purr like a chainsaw erupted from somewhere within the mass of fuzz. The cat headbutted his chin, then splayed on his chest, rather as though it owned him. No doubt he looked as ridiculous as he felt, but there was something oddly pleasant in having a small creature who neither knew nor cared what he had once been. It was soft and warm, and he could not bring himself to care that it would likely shed all over absolutely everything.

~

Von Rached spent the next few days in the company of his new feline, who showed a level of intelligence he would not have credited to an animal — though if it was in fact the Lady’s, he shouldn’t be so surprised.

It followed him everywhere, including the bathroom, which was so unnerving he booted it back out into the hallway. A cat door had appeared in the flat’s back door, so that the animal could do its business outside, and his refrigerator now stocked an assortment of cat food.

After two days, he took one of the empty journals from the shelf in his office, and sat to do what he hadn't done since before he died: make notes about a living thing. 

_ The creature is perfectly capable of entertaining itself, and yet it most often seeks to be where I am...when it is awake. If I shut it out of the lab, it scratches at the door and cries, but when I allow it inside, it promptly gets in the way of everything. Yesterday I watched it knock three petri dishes off the counter in rapid succession, seemingly for no reason other than that it could. It did not even have the grace to look ashamed. _

_ It also stares, and watching it makes me realize what my own gaze must have been like to those who saw it. I do not know if all cats blink so rarely, or just this one, but even I must admit it is somewhat unsettling. Perhaps because those eyes peer out from a circle of fuzz that seems to have no other features, so black are its nose and whiskers. It _

He got no further, because the cat, which had of course followed him into his office, leapt onto the desk and immediately tried gnawing on his pen. It left a long, uneven black line down the page.

“You wretched fuzzball, this is not for you to eat,” he said, but the cat grabbed his hand when he tried to raise it, still gnawing. What sort of thing did the creature think it was? He could think of nothing in nature the shape and consistency of a pen, and yet there they were. Perhaps that was a sign he ought to give up for now, and feed it. That tended to make it find somewhere to curl up and sleep.

~

The sixth evening, he sat on the floor of his living-room, brushing the creature while a documentary about ancient Australia played in the background. Oddly, his flat seemed more homey now that he was not the only being that inhabited it, though he was beginning to regret the cream carpet. The cat had yet to sharpen its claws anywhere it ought not to, but it shed as badly as he’d suspected, so he’d caved and made use of the cat brush that had conveniently appeared on an end-table.

“I should have gone to Australia,” he mused, while the cat purred. “I should have gone so many places. I could have afforded it.” The amount of fluff that came off in the brush was somewhat disturbing; surely the creature should have bald patches by now, and yet the fuzz was endless. He had a pile of it that was nearly as big as the cat itself, but somehow, there was always more. Was this normal, or something unique to this (presumably) supernatural feline? “There is so much I could have done, but I did not.”

The cat, of course, said nothing, though its purr rose in volume. Von Rached had found a documentary on domestic cats, and been rather intrigued by the myriad uses and causes of purring — cats purred when they were content, but also when they were ill or injured or otherwise uncomfortable, because a purr actually had some manner of healing property.

Soft summer breeze drifted through the open window, redolent of damp earth and heather. He had not thought to place his home anywhere in particular, and the land around it seemed to have defaulted to the German forests of his youth. His family’s estate had been rather isolated; when he was a boy, he’d often gone out in all weathers, because God knew it was better than sharing a house (however large) with his mother. That had halted once she died, and only since he himself had died had he realized what he’d been missing. Perhaps he should take the animal for a walk, as there seemed to be nothing in this dimension that could harm it.

“You have done well.”

Von Rached didn't jump, but it was a very near thing. There was quite suddenly a Lady where there had been no Lady before — seated in his armchair, and looking wholly out-of-place. Her wild dark hair and shifting green robe belonged in a forest, not his sitting-room, and she was honestly too tall for the chair — which was really saying something, considering it was large enough to accommodate him comfortably. It was the first time he’d seen her — or anyone else — since his death, and the sound of another voice was rather startling.

“In what sense, Lady?” he asked, as the cat sprang up onto the armchair.

“You have cared for this little one,” she said, carding one brown hand through the creature’s mass of fluff. “Cared for her, rather than experiment on her.”

“That...never occurred to me, honestly.” To Von Rached’s surprise, it was quite true. Though the cat had joined him in his lab each day (occasionally knocking things over, seemingly out of spite), thought of harming it had never crossed his mind.

A brief, blinding smile crossed the Lady’s face. “Because of that, I will give you a gift — a gift, and a task, for with it comes a great weight of responsibility.”

An irreverent, irrelevant thought coughed itself up from the depths of his mind, something that even he, who had been utterly disinterested in comic books, knew: _ with great power comes great responsibility. _It was not something by which he had abided, though once upon a time he’d thought he had — he’d spent so much of his life utterly convinced of his own superiority. Only twice had his control deserted him utterly, and given how long he’d lived, and only one of those had had truly lasting — and terrible — consequences. “What would you have me do?”

The Lady eyed him quizzically; when she spoke, it wasn't to answer his question. “Only one?” she asked, strangely gently. “Lorna, yes — what you did to her was a disaster mitigated only by my intervention, and it haunted you until the day you died, but do you really think so little of Sigyn?”

Von Rached looked away. “Sigyn was a failed experiment, over a century ago,” he said. “The culmination of her four months was an object lesson in why I should not lose control, nothing more.”

“And yet you told Lorna of her, so that her name would not be forgotten when you died,” the Lady said. “You were an honest enough man, more or less, when you yet lived, but you’ve lied to yourself since the day you killed Sigyn. The price of my gift is that you think on her.”

Now he looked back at her. “What is there to think on?” he asked. “It was a mere four months. I wished to understand why everyone I knew sought romantic companionship, Sigyn was lovely and actually interesting, and we both knew from the start that we were using each other, if for vastly different reasons. What happened to her was regrettable, but it was so long ago that I fail to see how it matters.”

The Lady actually sighed. “You have so much to learn, Raoul. You loved her, in your own way, for all your youth and arrogance meant there was precious little in you to give. To dismiss her thus is unfair to her, and to you.”

She rose. “My gift will become clear to you tomorrow,” she said. “In the meantime, pet this little one, and think on my words.” She was gone before he could protest. 

~

Pet the cat Von Rached did, but he very deliberately did not think on Sigyn. Instead he watched a documentary about the eruption of Mount St. Helens, while the creature sat on his lap and purred. He still didn't like to admit just how soothing the animal’s purr really was.

Why had he not gone to witness that? Why had he sat in his lab, like always, and watched from a distance? Why had he not _ lived, _when he had the chance?

Naturally, the cat said nothing, but it nuzzled his hand. It was difficult to sink into dark thoughts with the creature around; every time he tried, it gnawed, very lightly, on his knuckle.

“Yes, feline,” he sighed. “I brood. It seems to be what I do now.”

Eventually, he gave up and went to bed. The cat, as was its wont, curled up on his spare pillow; when in ball form, it looked like nothing so much as a sphere of black fluff.

“Goodnight, creature.” Once upon a time, Von Rached would have thought wishing anyone or anything ‘goodnight’ to be utterly beneath him, but there were none here to mark it.

~

_ Sleep found him easily enough — that was one change for which he was grateful. It no longer took nearly suicidal doses of morphine to grant him actual rest. He hadn't been free of his vice since his teens, and had all but forgotten what life was like without it. Then again, he was no longer alive, so he supposed he still did not know. _

_ He dreamt now of the Berlin of his youth. Unlike the Second World War, the First hadn't rained destruction upon the city, but that was just about all it had going for it. The winter of 1916 was a dismal one; the white purity of snow was churned into so much slush by horse-carts and automobiles, leaving the streets a slushy, treacherously slippery mess. Anyone unwary of their footing might well find themselves sprawled upon the pavements. _

_ Von Rached, eighteen years old and freshly independent, had never been to the city before. His mother had become something of a recluse after his father left, and refused to see anyone unless they came to her. He hadn't, at first, understood why; not until his teens did he realize it was largely bitterness and shame that her husband had abandoned her. That just Wasn't Done among their class of people, and doubtless people blamed her. Von Rached himself certainly did; in honesty, he had no idea why his father had married her in the first place. He couldn't imagine that she'd ever been anything other than a hateful harpy. _

_ He had, naturally, gotten his undergraduate requirements out of the way before he left home — it meant he could enroll directly into Charité _ _ – Universitätsmedizin Berlin _ _ , Berlin’s teaching hospital. It was one of the most respected in Europe, and so far it was not as dull as he had expected. _

_ Tiny snowflakes whirled and danced as he trod the pavements, weaving among the crowd. Business did not stop simply because a blizzard threatened, and he estimated he had perhaps an hour before the leaden sky truly opened. A wool coat, gloves, and hat kept him warm enough, but the air on his face was bitterly cold, and he’d be glad enough when he reached his destination. _

_ It was so _ loud _ here. His childhood home had been oppressively silent, save when his mother flew into one of her rages, and the forest outside was always serene. Here, even the falling snow couldn't muffle the rattle and squeak of carts, the sharp strike of hooves on pavement and the intermittent rumble of an engine. Automobiles were an incredibly expensive luxury few private citizens sought in this time of rationing, but Von Rached intended to get one. _

_ Before he could reach the bookshop, the dream shifted; now he sat in the home of a schoolmate, redolent of fine cigars and finer liquor. No coal shortages affected this social set, and the room was pleasantly warm. Friedrich von Bremen was the eldest of their little social set — he had deferred university in favor of travel, and was only now beginning medical school at the age of twenty-five. He was also, as of yesterday, engaged. _

_ Von Rached watched him curiously, as he sat slouched in a brocade wingback that had to be at least two centuries old. It was unsurprising that Friedrich’s father had put his foot down, and forced him to propose to his lady friend (from an impeccable family, of course); what _ was _ surprising was that the man was happy about it. Why? What was there to be pleased about, when he would be forced into domesticity within the year? Friedrich and Alessa were hardly chaste; surely maintaining separate residences would be preferable, would it not? _

_ “You are a genius, Ice King, but there are things you have yet to learn.” Friedrich’s face was rosy with drink, his eyes bright with it. “Now that you are out in the world, learn them you will. There is more to a relationship than carnality, you know — I love Alyssa for who she is, not just for her...well.” His hands sketched a crude hourglass in the air. _

_ The thought honestly baffled Von Rached. Sex, he understood — it was quite entertaining, though he suspected it would become dull after a while, like everything else did. Alessa von Hesse was indeed quite a beautiful young woman, clear-skinned and dark-haired, with eyes of an unusually deep blue. Having met her, Von Rached could even say she was not completely stupid (which was rather a compliment, coming from him), but why should Friedrich be so pleased at the thought of giving up his freedom? _

_ A touch of his alcohol-hazed mind offered Von Rached little clarity. The warmth found within it was not wholly due to the rather heroic amount of brandy the man had consumed, but its exact genesis could not be divined. It was alien, so foreign to Von Rached that he could assign it no name. Something about it repelled him, and yet it also intrigued. _

_ “Perhaps,” he said, entirely noncommittal. “One never knows.” _

~

Von Rached woke to the sun in his eyes, and the cat sprawled across his chest, very much like a tiny rug. Its purr rumbled through him, and its round eyes, as ever, stared.

With a sigh, he pushed the creature off him, ignoring its vague, formless noise of protest. He hadn't thought of Friedrich — or any of them — in well over a century. Only now, with the clarity of time and experience, did he realize that what he had sensed in the man’s mind had been love. It was very little like the love he’d (much later) sensed in Lorna’s mind, possibly because hers was familial where Friedrich’s had been romantic. At the time, he’d written it off as little more than too much alcohol.

He fed the cat and fried himself some eggs, while coffee percolated on the stove. Fresh air poured in through the open window, and with it a sound that he hadn't heard since before he died: birdsong. Specifically, the musical trill of a meadowlark.

Stunned, he set his fork down, and peered into the trees. He couldn’t see the bird, though given the density of the trees, that wasn't terribly surprising. Why should it affect him as it did? He’d scarcely noticed such things when he lived.

With a shake of his head, he turned back to the counter, only to discover the cat had finished its food and was now making quite a dent in his scrambled eggs. It had the gall to keep eating even once it saw him glaring at it.

“I’m sure you think you’re terribly clever,” he said blandly, and shooed the animal away. “You need a name. I may as well call you Creature, for that is what you are.” It was certainly the term he used most to describe it in his notes.

The cat glowered and stalked off, fluffy tail held high. Perhaps it would leave him in peace for five minutes.

Ordinarily, he would have gone to the lab once he’d finished eating, but today that simply did not appeal. Instead he took his coffee to the sitting-room, and hoped he could find something that was even mildly intellectually stimulating. The meadowlark might well have been the catalyst for his sudden urge to hear a sound other than his own voice. The television did seem to tailor itself to his wishes, but at times he channel-surfed purely for the sake of it.

“Not this morning, Raoul.”

Von Rached didn't jump, but it was a very near thing. “Must you arrive with no warning?” he asked. “And must you call me by that name?”

The Lady stood beside his television, watching him with starlit eyes. The sight of her next to such a modern, mundane object was dissonant to the extreme, for she was eight feet of ageless deity swathed in shifting green. “What warning could I give, that would not startle you so?” she asked. “And why did you keep your name, if you detest it so? You could easily have taken on another, when you went to America.”

The second question stymied him so much that he all but forgot about the first. Why _ had _he kept the execrable ‘Raoul’? He’d refused to allow even Lorna to address him by it, and not just because she mocked it. He could just easily gone by his middle name, Hermann, and yet he had no wish to.

The Lady did not press him while he pondered his answer, and he sipped at the black bitterness of his coffee. Naturally, the wretched cat did not afford him such consideration; it leapt onto the arm of the chair and stared.

“My given name is immaterial,” he said at last. “I am a doctor, a scientist — the title is what matters. I have been Doctor von Rached my entire adult life, and have known few intimately enough for them to warrant using my first name.” Even his schoolmates had called him ‘Doctor’ right from the offing, because he’d entered school knowing so much already. Considering his surname was one letter away from the German word for ‘revenge’, he was somewhat surprised that one hadn't caught on. Those outside of Germany never had pronounced it right, and for some reason he had never felt a need to correct it.

The Lady’s smile was brief and blinding, her teeth white as snow. “You thought before you answered,” she said. “Good. Now finish your coffee and come with me, for there is something I must show you, and I cannot do it here.”

Von Rached wondered how she could take the time away from...whatever the hell it was she did...purely to unsettle him. Surely she had better things to do, and yet he could hardly complain. She was a voice that was not his, something outside of a documentary’s smooth narration — something with which he could interact. And loath though he was to admit it, she had him very intrigued. 

He drained his mug, and it was with great curiosity that he trailed her down the corridor. He wasn't sure where she meant to take him; this way lay his lab and nothing else. 

“Not anymore,” she said, as she stopped him before a door that had most certainly not been there until now. “This door leads to many things, Doctor. To see what lies beyond is my gift to you. The responsibility is yet to come, and depends upon several things.”

“I don't suppose you will tell me what those things _ are _,” he said, but where once his tone would have been caustic, now it was merely slightly aggravated.

Again that fleeting smile, warm as sunshine. “I charge you with two things, Doctor,” she said. “One, observe all that you may. Two, think on a new name.”

Von Rached eyed her quizzically. To observe came naturally to him, but he did not understand her second request.

One warm brown hand stroked his forehead, the touch as maternal as he’d seen Lorna’s with the twins. “By the time you died, you were no longer a doctor,” the Lady said. “In one sense, you never were, for you so rarely sought to heal for any reason that was not self-serving. 

“In your death, you were neither — you were a father who sought to save the lives of his children, though they would never know what you truly were to them. You were a man determined to drag one he loved back to the world of the living, while knowing even that would never atone for the wrongs that you did her. You are not Raoul, and it is time you found a new self to be.”

She was gone before he could ask just what the hell _ that _was really supposed to mean. There was nothing for it, however; even the cat had deserted him, and such was his curiosity that he couldn’t have left that door shut if he’d tried. Drawing a breath he did not actually need, he turned the knob.

Whatever he might have imagined lay beyond the door, this was not it. He stood now in a laboratory quite unlike his own — this one was far more modern, from all he could tell. It was nebulous, the details only half-formed — it was, in point of fact, rather like some of the stretches of broken Time he and Sharley had wandered through in the DMA. Though he could see and hear, he could smell nothing, and when he waved a hand, he felt no displacement of air. 

It thus came as no surprise that none of the lab’s occupants seemed at all aware of his presence. There were fourteen of them in total: a small, dark-haired man of indeterminate age, garbed in a lab coat, who faced what had to be a small class of students. The room might look less than focused, but its occupants stood out in sharp relief — so much so that the tension in their eyes was plainly evident.

Most of them looked to be in their late teens, and Von Rached could not, at first, identify what stressed them; the Lady must have done something to him, to render him unable to read their minds. It was irritating, but he could work with it. He just didn't like it.

Circling the long island counter, he spotted the source of their dismay, and it arrested him where he stood. It came in the form of Mairead Duncan, his unwitting daughter, who sat and stared at the instructor with an intensity Von Rached recognized all too well. While there was no malice in her pale eyes, her curiosity bordered on unholy, and her gaze bore into the poor man like twin drill bits.

How old was she now? The Donovans were all so small it was difficult to tell, but she was somewhat taller than she had been when last he saw her. Her little brown face still held the soft features of childhood, and that only made the adult awareness in her eyes all the more jarring.

_ You may go closer. _ It was the Lady’s voice, soft in his mind. _ They cannot sense you. What do you see? _

Von Rached approached the little girl, taking measure of her posture, her expression — even the set of her shoulders was unsettlingly familiar. This tiny being might have her mother’s form in miniature, but it would seem she had taken much from her time with him. More than he or anyone else would have liked.

_ I see something that worries me, _ he said. _ I see myself, in this child who should bear no trace of me. I see one who could become more dangerous than I ever was. What happened to her? _

The Lady’s answer was blunt, but not unkind. _ You did. I offer you now the chance to undo it, but only if you prove worthy of the responsibility. The damage you have wrought need not be permanent — not for Mairead, nor for any others whose lives you poisoned. You cannot undo what you’ve done, but you may well mitigate its effects, should you be worthy and willing. _

Von Rached stared at his daughter, so small yet so intense. There was a chill at the back of her gaze that he liked not at all.

_ I am willing, _ he said. _ Whether I am worthy remains to be seen. _


	2. Chapter Two

Von Rached spent the rest of the day essentially stalking his small daughter. Mairead moved through the DMA with a very adult level of assurance, and yet often had to squeeze her way through crowds who didn't see her until they’d tripped over her. Her scowl, at least, was very much her mother’s, as were the kicks that found several shins.

At least the chilly, clinical curiosity left her eyes once she’d left the lab; the intensity that had so disturbed him was diminished. By the time she met up with her uncle and cousin (in a very Art Deco cafeteria, all porcelain and chrome), she seemed...not normal, but probably close to Donovan baseline. Though Von Rached knew her cousin was the elder, they looked to be roughly the same age; if not for the fact that her cousin’s eyes were green, they might well have been clones.

“Mairead, we found another one. The other Lorna Donovan.” Static sparked in the girl’s dark hair, and her fringe stood faintly on end, like some form of anemone. 

His daughter blinked, even as she dropped her oversized backpack. “There’s another one? Like a  _ Donovan  _ Donovan, or just a normal Donovan?”

“An actual one,” Saoirse said. “ _ Apparently  _ I’ve got an older sister Da decided I didn't ever need to know about, until she showed up at the Door in Wicklow.”

The girl’s father — Pat, that was his name — cringed. He looked positively sick, so pale his skin had a faint greyish cast to it. “She doesn’t know about you either,” he said. “I haven’t talked to her or her mam since years before you were born, allanah, and don't you go looking for her, d’you hear me? I botched my relationship with her mam up one side and down the other — she probably hates me, and I don't blame her.”

“Jesus, Uncle Pat, what did you do wrong?” Mairead asked.

“The question’s more, what  _ didn't  _ I do wrong,” he sighed, and picked up her backpack. “I know you hate it when someone tells you that you’re too young to understand, but right now you are.” 

The shame the man felt was plainly evident to Von Rached, even if the children were oblivious, and it gave him pause. If Lorna was ashamed of anything at all in her life, he’d never known of it, and yet her brother most patently was. In the North, her siblings had registered as an annoyance and little more, but he found himself suddenly curious. On the surface it had nothing at all to do with Mairead, and yet he had seen just how tightly-knit the Donovans were. This was, perhaps, something he should pay attention to.

_ Admit it,  _ some little voice whispered, as he followed the trio through the packed hallways — incorporeality certainly had its uses.  _ Admit it — you wish to see how someone else utterly botched their relationship. At the very least, Patrick Donovan has one automatic advantage: whatever went wrong, he obviously did not kill her. _

If he’d possessed an actual body, Von Rached would have frowned. He had a very real job to do; he couldn't allow himself to be distracted by personal matters. While the Lady might wish him to think about Sigyn, he strongly doubted she meant for him to do it while he was, for lack of a better word, working.

With a mental shake, he pursued the trio all the way to the warren of tunnels that lay beyond the mountain’s Door. The crowd thinned, but only a little, and he wondered how so small a man as Pat could bear being shuffled along by it. An inability to read the man’s mind meant he had to keep wondering, even as they reached the tunnel that led to the Duncan’s yard — and it was there he was forced to stop.  _ Something  _ refused to let him follow any further, to his intense frustration. How was he to aid his daughter, if he was barred from observing her in her home environment?

_ You’ll find a way. You know full well why this is as far as you may go. _

Irritation flared. Yes, he knew, and he even understood — Lorna would not wish him to see her life now, or her home. He couldn't blame her, and yet if he could only observe his daughter when she was away from the house, this would be markedly more difficult. A child so young would spend most of her time at home.

Before he could do much of anything, Von Rached had to test what boundaries and limits the Lady might have placed upon him. Until then, it was time to go home.

~

The cat, naturally, was waiting for him, and yowled until he fed it. Then it insisted on winding its way around his ankles, seemingly in an attempt to trip him as he assembled his own dinner (soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, since he was in no mood to cook proper food).

“Creature, I am already dead,” he said, glowering down at the animal. “Breaking my neck will not kill me again.” The cat, as ever, merely stared, until he sat at his table with an air of palpable annoyance. 

Before he did anything else, he had to test whatever limits and restrictions the Lady might have placed upon him. It ought not take more than a week, unless she’d meant to utterly neuter him.

One thing was for certain: he was most definitely no longer bored.

~

“All right, Pat: spill. Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?” Lorna shoved a mug of tea across the counter, and her glare told Pat that not only was he going to drink it, he was going to like it.

Her brother stared into the tea, cloudy with milk. “What was there to say?” he asked. “I fucked up, Fun Size. I wasn’t worth a damn when I was younger, and Grania suffered for it. The drink, the drugs...I was a useless excuse for a human being, and she’s way better off without me.”

“And your kid?” ‘Kid’ was something of a misnomer, since the girl was apparently twenty-six.

“Grania asked if I’d terminate parental rights. I said yes.” His voice was so filled with self-loathing that Lorna added a healthy measure of whiskey to his tea.

“So you were a mess, left, got your shite together, and Saoirse happened?”

Pat’s sigh seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. “Something like that,” he said. “When Saoirse came along, I didn't want to fuck up again. I didn't want to fail her like I’d failed my Lorna. Fun Size, you’ve really got no idea just how big a waste’v space I was in my twenties.”

“Probably no greater a one than I was,” Lorna said. “So you’ve not talked to them all this time?”

Now he looked up at her. “I didn't know where they were,” he said. “Grania Doyle and Lorna Donovan are both pretty bloody common names, and it’s hard to find people who don't want to be found. Don't go telling them I’m here, all right? I don't want them to run off, and they just might, if they know I’m about.”

Jesus, poor Pat...Lorna knew his youth had been as misspent as hers, but she’d never seen any actual evidence of that. “It’s not fair to either’v them, if none’v us reaches out,” she said. “We don't have to say anything about you if you don't want us to, but it sounds like the pair’v them are alone in the world.”

“‘Do it,” her brother said miserably. “If they’ll have anything to do with you, do it...Lorna, I had everything a man could reasonably want, and I threw it away because I was a total gobshite. I can only guess what the two’v them actually went through, with me and after. I did my best to look after you lot when we were kids, but I failed my own kid in the worst bloody way.”

“Is that what you’ll tell Saoirse?”

He groaned. “It’s what I’ve already told her, though I know she’ll want more than that sooner or later. I know she’ll never look at me the same way again, once she’s heard it all.”

Lorna grabbed his hand, and wrapped it around the mug. “Drink,” she ordered. “Saoirse knows we were all losers when we were younger — this is just her having actual evidence. Let her ask questions, and answer them as honestly as you can. You’re still her da, Pat, no matter how much’v a fuck-up you were twenty years ago.”

She paused. “Is Grania why you’ve not had a relationship, since Saoirse’s mam?” Given what a skirt-chaser her brother had been in his youth, his perpetual bachelorhood continued to be something of a surprise.

Finally, Pat sipped his tea. “Yeah,” he admitted, so quietly she almost missed it. “I fell in with Saoirse’s mam too early, and it wasn’t meant to be anything serious until Katie was up the yard and I was faced with fatherhood all over again. Saoirse came along and Katie was in the wind before her first birthday — I tried with her, but I was still a failure’v a human even though I didn't want to be. Katie needed mental help, and I didn't understand that until she’d gone. After that, I figured I’d ruined enough women’s lives.”

From anyone else, Lorna might have called that melodramatic, but the guilt in his voice told her he meant every word of it. She couldn’t fault him, either, because there but for the grace of god went her — she’d given up the drink and the drugs when she got up the yard with her own Saoirse, but she’d still been in no condition to be a mam to anyone. She and Liam had wanted that baby, but they probably would have been shite parents.  _ Somehow  _ Siobhan had managed it, but Eris was also the kind of person who was born grown-up in many ways.

“You can’t change what happened, Pat,” she said gently, “but you’re not that person anymore. You might’ve failed your Lorna, but a kid couldn’t ask for a better da than you’ve been to Saoirse. Yeah, you fucked up, but don't let the guilt eat you. It’ll do nobody any favors, and you least’v all.”

“Fat load’v good that’s done Grania and my Lorna,” he said. “Fat load’v good it’ll ever do them. Me pulling my head out’v my arse didn't change anything for them. Damage was already done, and I’ll never fucking forgive myself.”

“Well you just drink that,” his sister said. “We’ll see what can be done for the pair’v them, even if they don't know it’s us just yet.”

~

_ In the following week, Von Rached had been unable to rid his mind of Heinrich’s words. _

_ Had the weather been less filthy, he might have dismissed them entirely, but winter in Berlin was appalling. For days on end it would be bitterly cold, only to have the temperature rise  _ just enough _ to turn the snow to rain, which of course left a sheet of ice once it dipped below freezing again. _

_ At home, he had not minded so much. The forest on his estate was a white-frosted cake, the snow glittering like so many diamonds in the sunlight. There was no one save himself to disturb it, and he made sure to pry himself away from his books each day to spend time beneath the open sky. Even as a child, he knew the importance of exercise and physical health. _

_ Somehow, the sky in Berlin never seemed to be open even on clear days. The noise, at first so novel, began to grate; he’d begun resorting to morphine so that he might snatch even a few hours of sleep. Those long hours of wakefulness eventually told him two things: he needed quieter lodgings, and he needed to see if there was any actual merit to Heinrich’s assertions. The former he could leave to his estate agent, but the latter was down to him. _

_ Parties were the most logical place to meet women of his social station, and indeed he’d met (and become physically acquainted with) several already. However, all of those associations were understood by both sides to be purely physical dalliances, and in any event none of them were interesting enough to be endured in any other setting. The parties were dull enough in and of themselves, because few of the women who had legitimate intelligence had ever been taught to use it; among that set, charm was considered of more value than education. He wondered just how much intellectual potential had been wasted throughout history, simply because society couldn’t stand to see it housed in feminine form. _

_ He pondered, as he stared out at the leaden sky. His rooms were quite warm, and just now as quiet as they could be in the city. There was always Alessa, who could be turned with a little telepathic interference, but she was perhaps too close to home. As the Americans would say, one should not shit where they ate, and Von Rached would have had to interfere with his entire social circle if he was to avoid destroying it. Alessa, lovely and intelligent though she was, simply was not worth it. _

_ The jangle of the telephone broke through his thoughts. It was one more wretchedly unpleasant sound, and it assaulted his ears all too regularly — he’d have hired a servant to deal with it, if there had been one to be found in the first place. As it was, he was forced to answer the damn thing himself. _

_ Mercifully, his estate agent was not one to waste time on banal pleasantries. The man had served his mother since Von Rached himself was a small child, and detested her thoroughly the entire time; it had made Von Rached think well of him from the very start. “Mein Herr, I have a list of several suitable properties awaiting your convenience.” His voice was gravelly with age and drink, though he could hardly be faulted the latter; anyone who had to deal with Elizaveta Rostilava Mathilde von Rached for more than a week would either drink or snap. _

_ “Which of them do you think is the best?” The man had decent taste, and knew his employer’s whims well enough. _

_ “Ein Haus in Kurfürstendamm,  _ _ nicht weit vom _ _ Schloss Bellevue. The owner’s heir was killed in battle, and he wishes to liquidate his city assets and retreat to the country.” _

_ That was, Von Rached knew, all too common these days. It also likely meant the owner would be less than keen to haggle over price, not that that really mattered. “Set an appointment for this coming weekend,” he said. “I would like to inspect it myself.” _

_ He rang off, and pondered. Kurfürstendamm really was ideal; it was where one could see and be seen, and yet was not surrounded on all sides by urban sprawl. Should he ever actually find a woman suitable for this experiment, at least he would have somewhere to entertain her. _

I need a better wardrobe. _ His clothing was of the highest quality, but it was crafted far more for function than fashion — he had not bothered keeping up with the latest trends, for they seemed to change upon the whim of some unknown person. A woman who cared about such things would probably prove unspeakably boring, but he would hardly know until he tried. _

_ _

_ ~ _

_ _

_ The property, Von Rached decided, was perfect — so much so that he purchased it on the spot. Large enough that he would not be staring at his neighbors, but not so large that he would need an army of gardeners to maintain it. Assorted mounds of snow were likely topiaries, and the back garden held a courtyard and even a small fountain. _

_ The house itself was some two centuries old, two storied, furnished and decorated in a classical manner: the walls were paneled with beautifully finished oak, smooth as satin, hung with a few tasteful paintings he saw no need to rid himself of. Arched, leaded windows looked out over both front and back gardens, and over the doorway there was a curious window of stained glass, that looked rather like one of the Rose Windows in the Notre Dame cathedral. Most welcome was the fact that it had been wired for electricity not long before the war broke out. _

_ Yes, this would do. This would do very well. _

_ He had entrusted his estate agent to engage a cook and a maid, both of whom would arrive in due course; a gardener could wait until there was actually a garden to tend to. For now, he sat on the sofa (a green brocade that was unfortunately less than comfortable) and eyed the empty bookshelves that lined the sitting-room. There was more than enough room even for the books he had left behind in his estate, though god knew there was nothing else he would bring from that accursed place. It was filled with his mother, and the father he never knew. _

~

The cat watched Von Rached while he made breakfast, perched atop the refrigerator like a gargoyle. The sizzle of sausages joined the birdsong that filtered through the open window, and yet he scowled.

He really did not need these dreams — he didn't need anything that might distract him, and yet it seemed the Lady was determined to force them upon him. The War and all that went with it were not things he dwelled upon, and hadn't been for a very, very long time, and he couldn’t imagine how doing so would help him now. He had a job to do, and Von Rached had never done anything by half-measures. Distractions were unwelcome, but he had almost always been good at shutting out that which he did not think of.

Almost. Lorna was and remained his failure.

No matter. If Mairead remained in her home, he would seek her brother; if Jerry too stayed home, he would explore the rest of the mountain, and see what might or might not prove important. The DMA could come later, for Von Rached had a feeling it was of lesser importance to all of the Donovans than their mountain community. (He simply could not regard the twins, or even Ratiri, as Duncans; even in what little time he had spent among them, he realized that the Donovans absorbed those around them, like a tiny, profane amoeba.)

“I do not suppose you would care to comment,” he said to the cat, who, of course, said nothing. It did, however, lick his plate when he was done eating.

Since there was no one to see him, Von Rached actually rolled his eyes. This time he crossed the threshold of his new door with notebook and pencil in hand — presumably, his home would provide him with however many he might need.

This day, the door opened immediately out onto the mountain — out into a sun-washed morning. It looked to be late spring, for the few deciduous trees bore new green leaves, and wildflowers carpeted every open space. He had no idea if it was cool or warm, however, nor could he smell the clear, clean scent that ought to accompany a forest morning.

Though he had only seen the mountain once, on a dark and very stormy night, this trail seemed familiar. Lacking anything better to do, he followed it, unseen and unheard by the few people he passed. It was wider than he remembered — wide enough for a small vehicle, though at present he saw none save a handful of bicycles. How did they handle this in winter, or autumn? The trail was not paved, though in areas it was reinforced with stone. How it did not turn into muddy hell in the rain, he could not guess.

Being outside, away from his flat, was so novel that at first he moved with no real purpose — perhaps he could not appreciate this with all of his senses, but those he had were enough. Even his current invisibility did not bother him, for it allowed him to observe unhindered by the stares or nerves of others.

Eventually, the path led him to a small, thriving town — the very village he had seen on that wild night, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Here the roads were paved, the lawns manipured, but there was a marked scarcity of vehicles. From what little Von Rached understood of this mountain community, no roads led in or out; the only access was by air or by Door. Most vehicles he saw were for various services: delivery vans, utility trucks, flatbeds carrying construction and trail maintenance supplies.

For quite a while he paused, while the life of the village surged around him. Some people he actually recognized as former Institute inmates — he was hardly going to forget Wrigley, the young pyrokinetic who seemed to have mastered his ability.

But here was Patrick Donovan, clad in jeans, a thermal shirt that might once have been white, and a worn denim coat lined with sheepskin. His Gift, as Von Rached recalled, was chloropathy, so his presence made sense.

He was also visibly troubled, brow slightly furrowed as he stared unhappily at nothing. Von Rached’s inability to read his mind would have been galling, if the obvious cause of his distress was not already known.

What had he done, this small man? In Lorna’s memories, he was as much a caretaker of his siblings as it was possible to be, and during his (admittedly brief) stay in the North, he had seemed a devoted father. What had happened in the intervening years? It was rare that a man accept fault for something unless it did in fact exist, to one degree or another.

Von Rached didn't want to care about Pat’s troubles, and indeed, when he’d been alive, they might not have even registered. Now, however...perhaps it was his long stretch of utter solitude, but he found he was interested in spite of himself. He also retained his belief that this was, in some way, connected to his daughter. Certainly, he doubted his own Door deposited him completely at random.

He prowled the village while the unfortunate Pat stewed, and was pleased to discover his daughter, his son, and their cousin — a trio of tiny, flannel-and-jean clad children who between them were contriving to make off with what looked like an industrial, gas-powered weed-eater.

Von Rached watched Jerry closely, but saw in him no hint of the coldness that had lurked in his sister’s eyes the day before. Indeed, Mairead herself seemed...warmer, in a way. No longer was her expression too adult for her small face, though there remained a certain amount of watchfulness — a kind of calculation absent in the other two. Their cousin had grown somewhat since the end of the War, though no matter what her age, she had to be extremely undersized. Her eyes, green as Lorna’s, danced with simple, uncomplicated glee as they snuck through a crowd that paid them no mind at all. Von Rached wondered if Lorna knew her children could hide their presence from the minds of others.

But off they went, and so did he, rather intrigued — he couldn't imagine what use they’d have for such a thing, but they were certainly intent on having it. Had he ever been thus, as a child? Had he ever been so open and carefree? He strongly doubted it. He also doubted he ever could have been, even had the circumstances of his childhood been different. Perhaps he had not been born evil, but Lorna was likely not wrong when she said he had been born with something missing.

The children slipped out past the edge of the little town, back into the woods. They were nearly as silent as ghosts; somehow, their passage barely even disturbed the undergrowth. Deeper they went, and deeper still, well away from any path Von Rached was aware of, while shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy and glittered diamond-bright on lingering dewdrops.

Eventually, they reached a little but quite sturdy hut, placed square in the center of a small clearing. Solid though it was, it was also quite obviously crude; had they built it themselves? He couldn’t imagine who else might have, so far from anything else. Even with the twins’ telekinesis, bringing the materials this far would have been something of a chore, and he wondered how long it had taken them. It was unlikely anyone had actually given them any of it, either, yet somehow they managed to not only steal it, but keep it secret.

“I’m telling you, the engine’s not big enough,” the elder girl, Saoirse, said. “There’s no way it’ll get over five miles an hour, if it even moves at all.”

_ “It’s just a prototype,”  _ Mairead said.  _ “If we can take it apart to see how it works, we can build a bigger one, once we actually get all the stuff. I’m back in the DMA for class tomorrow, so I’ll look around and see what’s not nailed down.” _

_ “Yeah, and hope Vera doesn’t catch you again,”  _ Jerry snickered.  _ “Didn't she put security cameras up on her supply closets?” _

His sister rolled her eyes.  _ “Yeah, on the ones she knows I know about. So far none’v the mechanics have figured out I’ve been through their shite, but it’s taken me ages to lift even the few things we’ve got because we can’t risk anybody noticing.” _

“You know, if we just asked, they’d probably let us build this in their shop,” Saoirse said. “Just saying.”

_ “Yeah, and then try to supervise us using it, which translates to making sure we didn't have any actual fun,”  _ Jerry grumbled.

He and his sister disappeared into the hut long enough to gather a plastic bag filled with an assortment of tools. Von Rached followed them, and it was just as well none were aware of his presence, for he laughed at what he saw: an armchair, much like the one in his sitting-room, though upholstered in a truly hideous combination of olive green and mustard-yellow that could only have come out of the 1970’s. It rested upon a simple frame held up by four small tires, and sported not only a steering-wheel, but what looked to be gas and brake pedals.

Oh dear.

Von Rached had heard of such things, years ago — he believed they were called armchair cruisers, and had been the brain-child of people who were both highly intelligent and easily bored. Saoirse was very likely right; that small engine would indeed not be powerful enough to move the thing. Knowing what he did of his children, however, he would not be at all surprised if they had a better model put together within a month.

Mairead, so intent upon her task, sat with the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she started disassembling the small engine. It was a habit she’d inherited from her mother, though he doubted Lorna herself was aware of it. She was so intense, his tiny daughter, radiating a kind of energy unlike either brother or mother, and Von Rached realized it might well have come from him. Children were sponges, in a way, and they’d been with him long enough to absorb a few of his mannerisms.

_ Lorna must be oh-so-thrilled,  _ he thought dryly, but he had hardly done it on purpose. Notably, it seemed absent in her brother — Jerry was hardly placid, but his energy was very much his mother’s.

Von Rached’s ruminations were interrupted by Mairead, who raised her head and seemingly looked right at him. He froze, but there was no actual recognition in her eyes; she simply looked puzzled, and a moment later looked away. Could she somehow sense him? Instinct suggested that this was not at all a good thing; they should not, he was sure, have even a whisper of awareness of his presence.

He crept away, out into the undergrowth. There was little to be gained in hovering, and doubtless there was far more to see on this mountain. Still, the fact that his children would challenge themselves inordinately pleased him.

~

That evening, Von Rached organized his notes while lemon-basted chicken baked in the oven. The cat, of course, observed everything; its round, blueish-greenish eyes could stare like nothing else had ever seen. He did his best to ignore it while he wrote.

  * __Most of the mountain seems open to me. The only place I have yet been barred from is Lorna’s home, and I do not wonder why. Pat’s home, however, seems to be fair game. I will map the mountain as I go.__
  * _Mairead is perhaps not so worrisome as I at first feared. More information is needed._
  * _Saoirse worries me. Saoirse worries me rather more than Mairead at present, but I know too little of her to form anything like a plan of action. Not that I yet know how to implement one even if I had one._

That was, for now, enough. For once, he could go to sleep in the knowledge that he had actually  _ done  _ something — even if, at present, he could do no more than watch. Reconnaissance was essential, after all.

~

_ It was fortunate his agent had engaged the servants, because the next few days saw Von Rached far too distracted. _

_ Classes ate up most of them, which would have been a slog if not for one thing: the war, and its attendant shortage of doctors. Under ordinary circumstances, first-year students wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near an actual hospital, but now nobody would turn away volunteers with strong stomachs. If anything could make Von Rached ill, he’d never yet found it, so off he went, two hours before a bitingly cold dawn. _

_ The medical school itself was nearly two hundred years old — the most respected in Germany, and one of the best in Europe. Prior to the War, people had come from all over the world to study there. Medicine as a science was still a relatively new idea in many places even in the civilized world, and prospective students had precious few institutions to choose from. _

_ Thanks to the War, they had one less — the University had hemorrhaged students, and shortly thereafter lost qualified physicians and even instructors to the trenches. Some of them had returned with minds filled with fascinating horrors, and Von Rached wanted very much to look deeper, whenever he had the chance. _

_ Berlin was far enough from the Front that most truly critical patients died before they could arrive, but mechanized warfare had led to survivable injuries on a scale heretofore unheard-of. The wards were filled with men with mangled or missing limbs, with head wounds, broken bones, and the eternal curse of the trenches, typhus. _

_ Most intriguing to him, at least at the moment, were the survivors of gas attacks. Von Rached hadn't heard of mustard gas before he came to Berlin, and its effects were so horrifying he wondered that any supposedly civilized army dared use it. Evidently his own nation had started it, but now it was ubiquitous. _

_ The sight of it was so disturbing that most of the patients were sequestered in their own ward, and it was there that he went now. The white coat beneath his overcoat was crisply starched, which lent him an air of credibility right off, and he looked just enough older than his years to be accepted at face value.  _

_ Once he’d shed his outer layers in the cloakroom, none accosted him as he scrubbed his hands with a bar of harsh, pink carbolic soap. Its antiseptic qualities were useful, but it was murder on the hands — all who worked on the wards had learned early on to invest in lanolin, lest their skin crack and peel and even bleed. Von Rached himself questioned how sanitary a bar of soap might be, given how many used it, but there was as yet no alternative. _

_ The hospital itself was something of an odd amalgamation of the classical and the modern — of stateliness and plain utility. The building itself was a grand construction of red brick, with arched windows and accents of sandstone. Decorative pillars adorned the main balcony, with railings of stone wrought like iron. All of it was coated with soot, however — blackened by the thousands of coal fires that struggled to warm the city. _

_ Inside it was warm enough, but the once-white walls were grimy, and if the floor was mopped once a week they counted it a job well done. The beds were simple, plain steel, each exactly like the last; the linens were tidy, but worn, as were the garments that clothed the patients. There were rows upon rows of them — a grim testament to mankind’s ever-evolving methods of destroying itself. _

_ Though the nurses did their best, this ward smelled of infection, as well as bleach and some other bitter antiseptic that was like nothing else he had ever encountered. It lingered harsh and oddly sour in the sinuses, and Von Rached didn't wonder why some doctors had taken to placing small drops of diluted peppermint oil beneath their noses before they went to work. _

_ The ward remained as full as it had been when last he’d walked it, though a number of the faces — those not covered by bandages — were new. Burned faces, skin cratered and blistered by the gas; they were quite unlike any other burns he’d ever seen. If a soldier was lucky, he kept his sight, but many were not so fortunate. Quite a few drowned in the fluid their chemically scorched lungs exuded. _

_ What struck him was how _ quiet _ the ward was. Few spoke to any save doctors or nurses, and even then, they did so in hushed, haunted tones. The only things that broke the funereal stillness were the violent nightmares that plagued so many of the men. _

_ He moved through the rows, silent as a ghost, until he reached the bed of one Lieutenant Johann Strauss, age twenty. The young man had lost his sight, and very nearly lost his eyes, which stared milky from a face still scabbed and blistered. _

_ “Why do you persist in removing your bandages, Lieutenant?” Von Rached asked. The man’s face ought to be wrapped like a mummy’s, but he continually peeled the dressings away. _

_ “Can’t breathe with them,” Strauss whispered. His voice was hoarse, and Von Rached realized he had been weeping. So many here did, as though they thought it would avail them anything. Von Rached didn't understand the point of tears, but evidently they were quite popular. _

_ There was, he suspected, no point in lecturing Strauss about the possibility of infection, because the man wouldn’t care. Exhaustion hung heavy in his limbs, but his chart said he had refused sedatives. Like so many, he feared what sleep would bring. Objectively, Von Rached couldn’t fault him, but he was troublesome if left awake. Severing his consciousness was easy enough; within moments, he slept, and his burns could be freely inspected while his face was bandaged once more. _

_ A flurry of activity among the staff caught his attention, and with it several thoughts: ambulances. Another convoy had arrived — it must have driven through the night, to turn up at this hour. Now there would be new injures — new nightmares — for him to appreciate. Only officers were invalided to Berlin, but many were so mentally ill-equipped for life at the Front that they so often came back as shattered in mind as they were in body. _

_ He followed the bevy of doctors and nurses, and kept his expression neutral. It wouldn’t do to betray too great a sense of anticipation, because evidently that was considered peculiar, and he didn't need anyone looking at him overly askance. Nevertheless, anticipate it he did, because this was only the second time he’d been on-shift when the ambulances arrived. _

_ As on the first occasion, it initially appeared to be chaos — stretchers unloaded seemingly at random, competing with the traffic of those men who were more or less ambulatory. They might as well have been Brownian particles, and yet there were no collisions. The driver clearly had this down to something of an art form, for they moved with the surety and grace of dancers in an elaborate, if heavy-footed, ballet. In no time at all they had a highly efficient shuttle service to bear and sort men in the triage area, without so much as a moment's hesitation. _

_ Von Rached automatically moved among those whose heads were most heavily bandaged — if one couldn’t see the face, there might well no longer be one. He had seen some fascinating injuries already, and marveled at the amount of abuse the human body could incur and yet survive. The wheezing wetness of one man’s breath suggested a thoracic wound that somehow had yet to kill him. _

_ Two stretcher-bearers eased by him, like water around a stone — women, he realized, in filthy, ill-fitting military jackets and actual  _ trousers.  _ He’d heard of the female ambulance drivers; there were so few people left who  _ could  _ drive that anyone who knew how was useful, and a woman who drove freed up a man to fight (and mostly likely die). They also often swore like sailors, and indeed the one at the front did so now, creatively and at length. _

_ Her partner said nothing, but glanced at Von Rached’s nearest patient. To his surprise, her thoughts were not in German at all — he couldn’t recognize the language, but her impressions were clear enough. She was entirely sure the man would die, and soon at that, based on the quality of his breathing. _

_ He had no time to peruse more deeply, because she and her partner were off again in a moment. She was easy enough to spot in the crowd, because she was nearly as tall as most of the men, her dirt-streaked face lean enough to call underfed. _

_ Out the door she went, into the cold that blasted inside each time it was opened. Von Rached looked down, noted that his patient’s respiration grew more labored with every passing breath, and moved on. Whoever that driver was, she was likely right: the man wasn’t long for the world, and it had likely been a waste of an ambulance to transport him here. He must have been an aristocrat and at least a captain, to rate such treatment. _

_ When the door opened again, whirling snowflakes blew in on the icy breeze. The pale, cloudy dawn was screened in a shifting veil of white that would doubtless halt all traffic until proper daybreak; if there were ambulances further out, they would likely be trapped. Perhaps there would be an influx of corpses to study by tomorrow. _

_ In and out came the drivers, sweating with exertion even in the frigid air. This one’s mind was so jaded she scarcely regarded her charges as humans anymore, while that one was sick with worry for a sweetheart on the Western Front. A third woman supposedly sent every coin of her pay home to her widowed mother and younger siblings, but secretly spent part of her meagre salary on the alcohol that allowed her to do her job. A fourth was still in shock over the sight of a man’s head blasted to pink mist not two yards from her; the coppery stink of his blood lingered in her nostrils even now. The fifth, his non-German, seemed to think mainly of the ambulances, and the dying man they had wasted time and petrol to evacuate. _

_ “Sigyn, will you go to Number Five? The gearshift, it sticks.” The speaker was the only male driver Von Rached had yet seen — man in his late fifties, portly and florid. _

_ The woman’s — Sigyn’s — answering thought was actually in German:  _ if you did not grind gears like flour mill, you would be fine _ . She made no attempt at all to hide her glower, but nodded, and vanished into the crowd once more. _

_ There was no time to focus anymore on her or anyone else. Once the ambulances were unloaded, the bulk of them disappeared into the snowstorm, and doctors, nurses, and volunteers were left to it. The high ceilings and stone halls of the hospital echoed with dozens of voices, often talking at cross-purposes, and yet somehow, it worked. _

_ Unsurprisingly, the young man with the thoracic wound breathed his last in fairly short order, and Von Rached took a moment to peek beneath the soiled bandages. Why anyone had bothered with him was a mystery — aristocrat or not, there was nothing at all left of his jaw, and his left cheekbone and eye socket were all but obliterated. What little of his nose remained was a fleshy red pulp. _

_ Surely it would have been kinder to euthanize him at the Front? While it was true Von Rached understood little of mercy even in an academic sense, he was certain nobody would have forced an animal to live like that, and yet this man had been forced to live on in such a state. How strange. _

_ No matter. There were plenty who would not perish, if given anything like adequate care. _

_ _

_ ~ _

_ _

_ The snowstorm did in fact persist, and only grew in intensity as the morning progressed. Snow fell so heavily that it was all but impossible to see more than two feet outside the windows; they might as well have been cut off from the rest of the planet. Von Rached was fortunate enough to only live six and a half kilometers from the hospital; if need be, he could walk home, which was more than many of the staff could say. _

_ Frau Meyer, his cook, would doubtless keep his dinner warm. _

_ He was so distracted by the whirling snow that he very nearly didn't notice the pair of ambulance drivers who made their way down the corridor. Both were grey with exhaustion, though the shorter of the two blathered away, and did not seem to notice that her companion understood perhaps one word out of every three. _

_ What was she  _ doing  _ here, this Sigyn? Germany was not kind to foreigners, and had not been since the War began. All who were able had long since evacuated, and yet this young woman remained. Her age was difficult to estimate by sight alone, but Von Rached strongly doubted she was older than he. _

_ She was so tired that she gave him little more than a glance and a nod of acknowledgement as she passed by. Doubtless she and her companion sought an out-of-the-way corner in which to sleep. _

_ It was no matter to him. Their newest arrivals were sorted and settled; there would be little enough need of him by nightfall, and he would find better quality food at home. Rationing might be quite strict, but the black market still thrived for anyone who had enough money to throw at it. _

_ ~ _

Von Rached woke in no good mood. “I do not appreciate this, Lady,” he said, as he shoved the cat off his chest. “Surely I ought to think on Sigyn  _ later _ .” And yet he knew damn well that if not forced, he never would. That didn't mean he had to be happy about it.


	3. Chapter Three

Mairead had an idea. The idea became a plan, and the next morning, she headed off to the DMA. She had a biology tutorial anyway, so it wasn’t like she was trotting off with no legitimate reason.

She hadn't discussed it with Jerry, because she was pretty sure he’d just be against it. _ He’d _say it went too close to one of Mam’s Lines in the Sand, even though it totally didn’t, so she’d deal with it on her own. What nobody else knew couldn’t come back to annoy her later.

There were an awful lot of people in the DMA, but new people tended to get put in one particular wing — basically, a really big hotel that served as a holding area until flats could be assigned. Mairead’s targets were more than likely somewhere in there, and would be for a while yet; if she didn't find them today, she could always come back tomorrow.

Mam wouldn’t answer any questions about these Other Donovans, and Saoirse said trying to get information out of Uncle Pat was like trying to get water out of a rock. Considering all Donovans looked like, well, _ Donovans _ , this older cousin would probably be instantly recognizable once she was found. Mairead wasn’t going to read her mind (or her mam’s), because that really _ would _go past the Line in the Sand, but that didn't mean she couldn’t stalk and observe. It wasn’t every day you found out there were secret family members, after all, and that couldn’t just be ignored.

The tram, of course, was crowded as ever, and she had to squeeze her way out once it reached the stop she wanted. The foot traffic was both heavier and far more hesitant — those who lived in the DMA rarely moved with no actual purpose, but in this place nobody seemed to really know what the hell was going on.

She garnered several odd looks as she and her enormous backpack ooched their way along, but she paid it no real mind. This area of the DMA looked like it had got stuck in the 80’s — Mairead had seen pictures, and this had everything from chocolate tile to garish neon signs to, in some places, extraordinarily ugly wallpaper that looked like someone had thrown neon triangles at a grey background and left them wherever they stuck. Normally she liked making her way through DMA history, but she was glad she hadn't been alive in the 80’s. Too much of this would make her eyeballs bleed.

She let herself be borne along, while her mind cast itself outward. If she tried, she could see the world through other people’s eyes, though it was not something Mam knew about. No, she wasn’t actually _ reading _ anyone’s mind, but she was still _ in _it; if Mam knew, she might tell her to stop, but if Mam didn't know, she couldn’t say anything one way or the other.

It wasn’t an easy thing to do while she was also trying to walk, so Mairead ducked into a cafeteria as soon as she found one. It smelled like coffee and cooking oil, and it was so full she had to find a handy corner to sit in, but it would do.

_ Where are you? _ One thing Saoirse _ had _ found out was that this other Donovan was also called Lorna, after Mam. The kid who would have been Mam’s first would have been called Saoirse after _ her _Mam, and Mairead wondered if her family just wasn’t that good at coming up with new names. Even she and Jerry were named after other people.

Out, out Mairead’s mind traveled, and she slowly lost awareness of both her body and the space it occupied. Seeing through other people’s eyes really was _ fascinating _, because now she knew what it was like to be colorblind, to need glasses, even to only be able to see out of one eye. She hadn't realized just how good her own eyesight was until she started borrowing other people’s, but maybe she shouldn’t be too surprised. Mam was middle-aged and still didn't need glasses for her good eye, and Da had only got them for reading a few months ago.

_ Come on...I know you’re here somewhere. _

When she finally found her target, it was downright jarring. Yeah, this girl — woman — was a Donovan, all right. Facial features, height (or lack of it) checked out, as did the olive skin and dark hair. Hell, her eyes were even the same green as Mam’s and Saoirse’s. She sat in one of the hotel rooms with her own mam, and she didn't look happy.

It was here that Mairead wished, oh so much, that she was allowed to read somebody else’s mind without permission. While she regarded most other rules as guidelines at best, this was the one she’d never broken, and never would break — no matter how tempting it was. That would make it all too easy to be like Doctor Man (for so she and Jerry still thought of him), and that was just not a place she ever wanted to go.

That didn't, however, mean she couldn’t watch, or listen to what people said out loud — and people said all sorts of shit when they thought they were alone, or only with a person or two that they were really close to.

“Allanah, your aunt’s obviously not like your da,” her aunt said. The woman’s voice was soft, and very Dublin. “She’ll probably be the best teacher you could ask for.”

“It’s just...weird, you know? I’ve got the block for now,” the young Lorna sighed. “It’s not like there’s any need to hurry, and she looks so much like Da.”

“And like you,” her mam said. “Even if he’s around, it’s not like you’ve got to see him. Neither’v us do.” She sounded so unconcerned that Mairead suspected she thought Uncle Pat wouldn’t want to see either in the first place.

So this Lorna was probably a telepath, too...yeah, she’d more than likely be in one of Mam’s classes. God, just how did Uncle Pat really fuck up with these two? What the hell did he _ do _?

_ Mam’ll get it out of him, _Mairead thought. She and Jerry just had to be around when it happened.

~

Von Rached had not been this exasperated since the day he died. 

That his daughter had standards was a relief. That she was so nosy in the first place was not at all, and yet it came as no surprise. His children’s curiosity was boundless, and this was something directly connected to their family.

He followed her through the DMA, all the way to her biology class, and his exasperation rapidly turned to unease. No sooner had she opened her textbook than her expression shifted from childish curiosity to a very adult sort of interest. The chill in her eyes was back in force — a fact that seemingly was not lost on her instructor, if the man’s somewhat unsettled expression was anything to go by.

What, exactly, was he meant to do about it? She could not be allowed to know anyone at all interfered, and he was unable to read her mind. Clearly the Lady expected him to do _ something _, but just what that might be for now eluded him.

_ You cannot read it. That does not mean you have no influence over it. _

The thought made him pause. He couldn't read Mairead’s mind, nor could he follow her into her home, but were her dreams also guarded? There was only one way to find out. For now, he ought to seek her brother.

~

Jerry, Von Rached discovered, was reading to his cousin and Sharley’s small, undead daughter. The room they occupied was large, white, and entirely without furniture, each all lined with metal rods. It would have seemed and innocuous activity, had the book he read not been about the Chernobyl disaster.

“I wonder what’d happen if a healer got hit with a shitload’v radiation.” Tiny bolts of lightning arced around Saoirse’s fingers, sparking along her skin in silver veins. She sat at the center of the room, lotus-style, though she didn't appear to actually be doing anything. “Would their magic counteract it?”

“Dunno that _ anything _could counteract that much radiation,” little Marty said. “There’s some woods out past the Edge of the Real that even Granny Jary won’t fly over, they’re still that contaminated. The trees are all brown and dead like some of the ones at Pripyat. Even a zombie might get fried, so I bet a healer would, too.”

“That’s not a mental image I needed, but I’m not getting rid’v it now,” Saoirse snorted. A tiny bolt of lightning jumped from her fingers to one of the rods. “Shit.”

_ “The guy who fucked up at Chernobyl had Dyatlov for a second name,” _ Jerry said. _ “Dyatlov Pass got called after another Dyatlov, who was on a camping trip with some mates when they all died in weird ways nobody ever managed to totally explain. Somebody said they had radiation in their clothes.” _

“If my last name was Dyatlov, I’d change it,” Marty said. “Saoirse, did your dad say anything else about your sister or her mama?”

Another vein of lightning jagged to a rod, this one behind the girl. “No,” she said, “and I didn't ask much more, because he looked like he was about to cry. Whatever he did, he regrets it now.”

Jerry and Marty exchanged an expression that was outright alarmed. “Goddamn,” the latter said.

“I know — _ damn _it.” Another larger bolt struck a rod. “Every time I think I’m better at this, I’m not.”

“You’ll get it,” Marty said. “Supri said so. Just think about radiation zombies instead of your dad crying.”

Von Rached arched an unseen eyebrow. Bizarre as that conversation was, it seemed largely harmless. There was likely nothing more to be gained by listening, so off he went.

He did not, at first, have any particular destination in mind. Like the mountain, the DMA was fascinating in its own right, and all the more so because he and Sharley had wandered through so much of its history before she cemented it into reality. His lack of a corporeal body meant he could travel as fast as he liked, unhindered by the crowds — he did have to wonder how anyone managed to get any appreciable distance without it taking half the day, because traffic was heavy no matter where he went.

What other Donovans might be found here? Lorna’s sister, certainly, but he didn't know if the woman had children of her own, or if she too lived on the mountain. He would find out in time, once opportunity presented itself.

Eventually, he found a classroom half-full of a motley assortment of people — they ranged in age from young teenagers to a few who might well be in their seventies. The standard chairs and desks had been pushed to the edges of the room; instead, they sat on sofas or armchairs that spanned decorative decades. All were arranged in a semi-circle, and at its edge sat Lorna.

Von Rached knew he should not linger, but this was the first he’d seen of her since his death. She had not aged at all, though her blind eye was somewhat clearer, and if she bore any mental scars from her death and resurrection, she hid them well.

How strange it still was, to see her and not, on some level, want. In the last days of his life, whatever twisted love he had for her had become as pure an emotion as he was ever going to be capable of, and it seemed that held even now. No longer did he wish to touch her hair, to run his fingers over the planes of her face — to see her was enough, even if only for a few moments.

_ Eurydice, _he thought. She had been Eurydice, but unlike Orpheus, he had succeeded in freeing her from the afterlife. It didn't make up for all he had done to her, but it was the best he had been able to do. There was no way to undo the past, but if nothing else, he had given her the chance for a future.

But no, there was no time to linger, so off he went again. There was much more to learn.

~

Von Rached for once went to bed at a reasonable hour, because while he was uncertain if he could invade his daughter’s dreams, it definitely wouldn’t work unless he too was asleep. If anyone actually understood dreamwalking, it would be news to him, but it had become common enough even when he was alive. (The cat, of course, took up residence on his other pillow, and smacked him in the face with its bottle-brush of a tail until he deposited it down near his feet.)

_ He had not attempted to enter the dream-Garden since his death, but instinct told him it was the most likely way to gain access to his daughter’s dreams; it rather seemed to be the go-to setting for dreamwalking. It was not something he was willing to push, however — instead he wandered, just as he had in the living world. _

_ This night he walked beneath the pale light of a three-quarter moon, silvering the grass that whispered about his ankles. In this place, all his senses remained; the scent of dewy earth mingled with a lingering air of sun-warmed grass. A symphony of distant crickets chirped, and somewhere nearby a creek burbled, but otherwise all was still and quiet. _

_ Should he somehow find his small daughter’s sleeping mind, what, exactly, was he meant to do? He could not speak to her directly — he could not let her know that she wasn’t alone in her own mind. _

_ Then again, he had to find it first. _

_ He knew that some places in the Garden mirrored locations in the real world, but he did not know how to navigate it — or even if it could be consciously navigated to begin with. Perhaps the Garden did as it wished with those who walked among it, and directed them according to its will. Once, that uncertainty would have irked him, but no longer. Now he had nothing but time. _

_ How long he wandered, he didn't know, but eventually he found himself in what he recognized, even in the moonlight, as the Donovan home. He had only seen the yard once, but the house’s exterior had not changed, and roses still ran riot over the trellis above the sliding-glass door. Why should he be allowed in the Garden’s version of the place, but not the real thing? If he was lucky, he’d get an answer, but he doubted it. _

_ He was honestly surprised when the door opened for him, though he was given no chance to explore; his feet drew him to a particular bedroom, where his daughter lay sleeping on the bottom bunk of a steel-framed bunk bed. Instinct warned him not to disturb her slumber, but perhaps he would not need to — perhaps she might hear what he had to say anyway, though he could not do so in his own voice for that she would surely recognize. But if not his, whose? _

_ The answer presented itself in the next moment: Ratiri. Ratiri, the man who was the twins’ father in every way that actually mattered. _

_ “Have a care, Mairead,” he said softly. “Hold to your standards, for you will help no one if you break them — least of all yourself. You are loved, and those who love you would not see you turn from your principles. They would not want you to become like...Doctor Man.” He had no idea if the twins still referred to him thus or not, but perhaps it was safest if he did. _

_ Mairead didn't stir, which was probably just as well. He would have to trust that she somehow heard him, for he doubted he would be given anything like confirmation. Would he be allowed to search the rest of the house? _

_ Apparently not; when he tried, his traitor feet led him right back outside, without even a stop to his son’s room. Either Jerry did not need him, or he would be better used elsewhere. _

~

_ The snowstorm raged for another three days, and left Sigyn ever more desperate. Berlin had ground to a near standstill, but neither she nor any of the other drivers were getting paid for their time trapped at the hospital. At least they were fed, though not very much: the hospital’s rations were calculated by the number of patients, not staff, so the drivers had to make due with whatever might be left over. Snow or no snow, they couldn’t linger here much longer. _

_ “You think you can drive in this?” Greta, her partner, sat wrapped in a blanket — they’d found a corner in the cafeteria semi-close to the radiator, but Greta had come down with a cold and was thus gripped by chills. Her sharp nose was raw and red from constant blowing, eyes watery, and she sounded as though someone had filled her sinuses with cement. “Siggy, you’re crazy. You would slide off the road and freeze to death — at least here we’re inside, and we’re not starving.” _

_ “And what if we wait more days, and snow gets worse?” Sigyn asked. “We can go now. Tomorrow there is maybe two times this snow, and then we don't get paid. Hospital might make us pay. You know how I drive.” _

_ Greta sneezed. “I do,” she said, “and that’s what scares me. We’ve been helping with the patients, I doubt anyone will charge us for staying here. You know more about practical nursing than the rest of us — I don't know why you’re worried.” _

_ Sigyn rolled her eyes. “Nurses think I am stupid,” she said. “Because of my German.” The truth was that she knew far more German than she was likely to let on, just because so much of it was lower-class and vulgar, and using it would do her no favors at all. It was astonishing what one could pick up at the Front, among soldiers who might or might not care there were women present — but while it was undeniably entertaining, it was only useful if she had to threaten someone in her ambulance into good behavior. She hadn't grown up around such language, and she wasn’t about to use it in this kind of setting. People looked at her askance enough as it was. _

_ “Half these nurses wouldn’t know their arse from a hole in the ground, if they were at the Front,” Greta snorted, and sneezed again. “Just ignore them. You can change bandages without getting sick, and you don't need a nurse hovering over you to do it. What is it that your father said?” _

_ That drew a quiet laugh from Sigyn. “Best way to do anything is look so much like you should be doing it that nobody ask questions.” It sounded far more elegant in Icelandic, but it was the best her broken German could manage. Her pappa had been right, too — it was how she’d landed a job as an ambulance driver to begin with. She could drive like a demon and keep a vehicle running on little more than spit and a prayer, and both those facts had led the military medical staff to overlook the fact that she was a foreigner who was barely competent in this country’s language. _

_ “Exactly. Go deal with the most disgusting, pussy bandages you can find, and nobody will bother you.” _

_ It was decent advice, so once she’d had some toast, Sigyn did exactly that — though she made sure Greta made it back to the glorified storage cupboard that had been housing all the drivers. It was warm enough, and a nap would do the poor woman good. While she was at it, she stole a spare nurses’ cap, in the hope that it might lend her some imagined air of authority. She also gave her hands and arms a thorough scrubbing, and absconded with a bag of clean bandages, a bottle of saline, and another of iodine. _

_ After so much time at the Front, the quiet of this hospital was jarring. She’d grown so used to the sound of artillery — distant or not-so-distant — that the soft hush of the wards was strangely oppressive. It was almost a relief when she did find patients talking to one another, though she still thought German sounded so guttural compared to her somewhat lighter, lilting native tongue. She’d barely spoken a word of the language when her pappa dragged her out to this blasted country, and her formal tutoring had ended when he, abruptly and without fanfare, expired from pneumonia. _

_ She now moved as quietly as she could through the ward, following the sickly, sweetly unpleasant scent of infection. Having seen the horrifying damage some of this war’s weapons could do, she sometimes thought that those who died immediately were the lucky ones — those that didn't suffered the agony of lost limbs with little to no relief from the field hospital’s dwindling supply of pain medicines, and then all too often came down with an infection and died anyway. There was no such thing as a sterile environment in a field hospital or ambulance, no matter how hard everybody involved tried to create one, and the sight (and smell) of a septic amputation site was not one she would forget in a hurry, though god knew she’d try. _

_ Dealing with one, she had discovered, was one of the quickest ways to make a doctor or nurse like her — if she did it right, they didn't have to. If she managed two or three, maybe the nurses would stop staring down — well, up — their noses at her. It helped quite a bit if she regarded the limb as a piece of meat, rather than a piece of human. _

_ The first man she found was really more of a boy — if he’d even reached eighteen, she’d be very surprised. His face was still child-smooth, though his right cheek bore the angry red lines of gunpowder burn, and his sandy hair was very fine. It looked as though someone had given him a proper painkiller, so with any luck, he wouldn’t wake. _

Unwind, irrigate, clean, bandage_ . If the actual doctors and nurses at the Front had done their jobs correctly, there wouldn’t be any shrapnel; if not, removing it was beyond her skill even if she’d had the tools. _

Unwind_ . Sigyn had done this so many times now that it was second nature, though she’d learned the hard way to breathe through her nose, not her mouth — yes, it smelled, but smelling it was better than _ tasting _ it. Perhaps it was all in her mind, but she’d swear the stink of a septic wound could be tasted if one got too close — which was inevitable in changing a dressing. _

_ The bandages, naturally, were stuff with blood and dried pus, which leaked sluggishly down his calf when they were removed. She set her jaw as she irrigated the wound with the saline, and let the milky, blood-tinged fluid drain onto the soiled fabric. There didn't seem to be any foreign particles, so she cleaned and dried and re-wrapped the limb with as brisk an efficiency as she could manage. Mercifully, he barely stirred even when she applied the iodine. _

_ She had no idea what to do with the soiled bandages; in the field hospital, they were often tossed on the floor until there was a spare moment to clean up. That obviously wasn’t an option here, which meant she was stuck carting them around from bed to bed. _

_ “Generally there is a basket for those.” _

_ Sigyn jumped, and swallowed an especially colorful curse she’d picked up from a soldier last week (he’d come missing his left leg below the knee, and his vocabulary had been, well, an education). She also managed to not drop any of her equipment when she turned, and found herself confronted with one of the doctors she’d seen during the initial triage. _

_ He really was by far the tallest person she’d ever seen in real life, but now that she got a better look at him, she realized he couldn't possibly be a proper doctor — he was too young. If he was more than a few years older than her, she’d be very surprised — he had to be a volunteer, too, but at least he didn't look poised to shout at her. _

_ “Sorry,” she said. “I did not know, but this—” she gestured at the row of men, so many with soiled bandages, “I thought maybe this should not wait.” _

_ “Are you a nurse?” He had, she noticed, very pale eyes — so pale she might have been unsettled if she hadn't been so tired. She’d never seen eyes like that on a human before. His hair was a touch too long to be fashionable, and his face was entirely, sensibly bare. A baffling number of men, even at the Front, wasted time grooming unnecessary and impractical facial hair. _

_ “No,” she admitted, and did not actually say _ , I’m no more a nurse than you are a doctor _ . “But at Front, you learn things. Doctors need everybody they can have.” Should she move on? Would it be rude? Probably, yet standing here with soiled bandages was both awkward and unpleasant. The fact that she was accustomed to the stink of infection didn't mean she was anxious to cart it around with her any longer than necessary. _

_ He quirked an eyebrow. (An eyebrow, she noticed, that he really didn't actually have. Like her, he suffered the Curse of the Blonds, and looked as though he had none.) “I have nothing better to do,” he said. “I may as well aid you. We could finish in half the time and hope the cafeteria has not yet managed to stew the tea.” His speech was so precise and measured compared to everyone she dealt with at the Front, which was something of a relief; it made him much more comprehensible than, say, Greta. _

_ ~ _

_ Things went easily enough after that, but as soon as he could, Von Rached caught sight of his reflection on a steel tray. Sigyn was right — he did indeed have rather a lack of discernible eyebrows. Evidently it took a woman to notice such a thing, since he certainly hadn't. _

_ Her own, he noted, were as golden as her hair — what little of it he could see, at any rate. She really was rather pretty, in an elfin sort of way, even if he likely wouldn’t have spared her a second glance in any other situation; she was taller and skinnier than the other women who had caught his notice. Her eyes were a pale greyish-green, like water over a mossy stone — all in all, she was surprisingly more aesthetically pleasing than many of the other nurses. _

_ Not that any of that really mattered. What intrigued was her mind, and the challenge it presented: it was somewhat difficult, he found, to read a mind whose thoughts were primarily in a language he did not know. It forced him to rely far more on impressions and emotions than was his wont, and he found that he actually had to take cues from her facial expressions. He wondered if this was how ordinary people took measure of another — and if so, how on Earth they could stand it. _

_She yawned, and an image flitted through her mind, brief as lightning and just as clear: a large, beautiful geothermal pool, some shades paler a blue than the azure sky. The rocky shore around it was dusted with snow, but a memory of the pool’s warmth wound through the picture, and through Sigyn._ Gamla Laugin, _what did that mean? Where_ _was it?_

_ Iceland. _ Iceland. _ He knew next to nothing of the island or its people, but if it held something as lovely as that pool, perhaps he needed to learn more. Eventually this wretched war would end, and he would have the opportunity to travel. He too could see that pool one day. _

_ ~ _

When Von Rached woke, he stared at the ceiling for a rather long while. The cat, as ever, was sprawled across his chest, but for once he didn't shove it away. Its purr rumbled through him.

Why was he being shown Sigyn’s memories? Was it not enough to curse him with his own? Surely he was meant to think _ on _ Sigyn, not _ as _her.

“She was a failed experiment,” he said aloud, “but she didn't deserve her fate. She deserved to go home, since it was all she’d wanted before...me.”

He stared up at the sun-speckled ceiling, until the cat bit his chin. It wasn’t a hard bite, but a bite it was, and he shoved the creature off him.

“Wretched beast,” he muttered, and ignored its glare. “Is this not what is wanted of me? My mind is turned to her whether I like it or not, and I understand full well how I wronged her. She was as innocent as anyone could be in the midst of that war, and in the end it got her killed, for she came to trust a monster.”

The cat, of course, said nothing, but didn't protest when he rose. While he had no real need to shave here, he still did at times, and he thought it might be soothing now.

The face that greeted him in the mirror was some years younger than it had been at his death, though that wasn’t saying a great deal — he hadn't lived long enough to look old. His form seemed to have naturally settled at the prime of his life — somewhere in his early thirties, his hair longer than he had normally worn it when alive, but shorter than the borderline hippie hair he’d wound up with during the War.

Sigyn had thought him handsome, as had other women he’d known (in spite of his apparent lack of eyebrows), and he supposed he was attractive enough; it was not something that had ever mattered to him, and in any event most had been too intimidated by him to notice one way or the other.

(All right, he did wish Lorna had noticed, but he’d realized much later that even had she not detested him, she preferred her men have rather more melanin than he did.)

But Sigyn had been appreciative, even though she was hardly going to say so. Von Rached in turn had not let on how lovely he thought her for quite a while, for he didn't want to frighten her. While it really had been nothing personal against him, she had been wary of his intentions for her first few weeks in his home.

No, she had not deserved her ultimate fate, any more than Lorna had — and just as with Lorna, he wished they had never met.

He wondered, as he applied shaving foam, just where Sigyn had gone when she died — what her preferred afterlife would be. Wherever her family was, obviously, but the location...most likely Iceland. Von Rached hoped she had found peace there, after her life was so tragically cut short at his hands...literally.

What was he to do today? It was unlikely Mairead would betray that his words had any effect on her, if indeed she had even registered them, but he would do well to watch her anyway. He also really ought to keep an eye on Saoirse, because something in his intuition suggested that she might well become a...problem. Considering the twins seemed to spend a great deal of time around their cousin, that ought not be too difficult.

“You,” he said, pointing his razor at the cat. The animal had taken up residence on the toilet tank, like some form of gargoyle. “If I find you’ve chewed a hole in even one more of my socks, I will shave you.”

The cat, of course, yawned.


	4. Chapter Four

His children made his life extremely easy. This was a Saturday, thus both were free from tutors — as was their cousin. The three of them in one place meant he didn't have to try to chase them all down, which he quite appreciated. While he might not get winded in his new existence, he still had to walk everywhere; there were, so far as he knew, no shortcuts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the trio had taken to stalking their elder cousin (who Von Rached was already beginning to think of as Lorna the Younger). What _ was _somewhat surprising was how good they actually were at it; the three of them should have stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, given their nearly-identical appearances, yet none seemed to notice.

It took him a few moments to realize that it was because nobody _ did _ notice. One of the children — Mairead, he found — was veiling the trio from the sigh of all around them, as they snuck their way all but flattened against the cafeteria wall.

Von Rached frowned. He had habitually done that very thing himself, and in theory there was nothing actually wrong with it. It involved no reading, and very little manipulation, but it sat ill with him anyway, precisely because he’d so often done it himself.

_ Then again, _ he thought, _ their mother would have done the same, had she been able at their age. _For all he knew, Lorna might occasionally do it even now, should she wish to escape notice (and small talk). He would not try to intervene, not yet, but that didn't mean he wouldn’t observe.

The younger Lorna looked rather more animated than she had when last Mairead spied on her, as did her mother. They ate at a table only lightly populated, and did not seem at all bothered by the sheer amount of chrome that glinted under the ceiling lights. Von Rached found that he wished he could smell, for he was certain their soup — gumbo, if he wasn’t mistaken — smelled wonderful.

“I knew you’d feel better once you could block things yourself, allanah,” her mother said — what was the woman’s name? Grania? How very Irish. 

“I just wish we could go outside,” the younger woman said. “It’s nice in here, but not seeing the actual sky’s a bit...weird. I know there’s the windows, but they’re not real, and that’s even weirder. D’you think we could hop to Wicklow soon? It’s not Dublin, but at least it’s Ireland.”

Her mother watched her closely. “Yes,” she said, “but I want your aunt to come with us, if she will. You’d do best with another telepath.”

“Mam, Aunt Lorna never goes anywhere,” Lorna the Younger protested. “One’v the few things anybody seems to actually _ know _about her is how much she hates leaving the mountain — especially after what happened in Tanzania. I can’t bloody blame her, either.” 

“Some other telepath, then.” Her mother had the kind of gentle insistence that would get its way, sooner or later, whether anybody liked it or not. “But I wish you’d talk more with your aunt. I shouldn’t be the only family you’ve got in the world, allanah. Not with my health.”

“Mam, you’re in remission,” her daughter protested. “You’ve been in remission for the last two years, and now you can get screened by a healer...whenever, honestly. I don't need anybody else.”

While Von Rached idly wished he could read her mind, he did not really need to. Anyone with even an ounce of perception could see that assertion for the lie it was, and he wondered why her mother had never taken up with another man. Had she been — what was the expression? Burned too badly? He knew that some people did swear off all relationships, especially if more than one failed spectacularly.

He turned his attention to the children, who had by now crept quite near. They sat behind a potted fig tree, very like a trio of statues. Two pairs of pale eyes and one pair of vivid green were locked on mother and daughter, and he suspected that this Lorna was going to acquire cousins whether she wanted them or not. Whether she ever accepted her younger sister...well, that was hardly Von Rached’s problem, so long as none of the children did anything they would later regret.

~

“Pat, they’re bloody fine.” The Donovan siblings’ days off did not always align, but Siobhan had made certain she’d be free at the same time as her elder brother, because otherwise he’d sit and brood and both of them damn well knew it. So she invaded his kitchen with a plate of biscuits (baked by her daughter, who was a better hand in the kitchen than Siobhan herself) and some of Geezer’s home brew. It was a bit early for the latter, but, Donovans.

“And how d’you know that?” Pat asked, glowering at her.

“What part’v ‘I’ve got contacts’ isn’t clear to you?” she asked, and glowered right back. “Grania had ovarian cancer that’s in remission, and your Lorna got her Leaving Cert through a mail course once the War was over. She got hit with the Telepathy Stick three days before they came to the DMA, but her mam hasn’t got a Gift yet. Oh, and Grania was an ultrasound tech, so Mick’s pulling some strings to get her on at hospital in the DMA.” Her tone was so aggressively matter-of-fact that it practically dared him to argue with her.

“Cancer?” he repeated. “Bloody Jesus…”

“That’s in remission,” Siobhan reiterated, and shoved a biscuit into his hand. They were snickerdoodles, and still a little warm. “And you’d better have milk, because I’m not going back for any.”

“In the fridge,” he said, even as she pushed him down into a chair.

Siobhan rolled her eyes, but was pleased to find that his fridge was as tidy as his kitchen (if a touch bare). Perhaps it came of being a single father, but he and Geezer were the only single men she’d ever known who actually kept a neat and tidy house. The fridge was stainless-steel, the counters marble in the same dark tone as Lorna and Ratiri’s — much of this house had been modeled after theirs, which made sense, given how long Pat and Saoirse had lived in it. The only thing missing was the rose arbor off the sliding-glass door, because Pat never had been thrilled by the number of bees Lorna’s attracted.

“I don't know what you’ve told Saoirse, but you’d best bet she knows plenty anyhow,” she said. The milk was in a glass bottle, still half-full, and she collected it and two glasses. “The twins are sneaky and they drag her along for the ride more often than not. Now my question is, what’re you going to do?”

“What d’you mean?” he asked. He made no move to take the glass his sister plunked down in front of him, until she pressed it into his other hand. “I’m not going to do anything. They don't want to see me and I don't blame them at all. Last thing I want to do is make things awkward.”

Siobhan sighed. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “No, you can’t go contacting them, but I know that’s got to be eating at you. You’ve got so much guilt over this that I really think you ought to talk to someone — a professional someone, not just one’v us. I got a list’v counselors off Gerald.”

“Christ, Shiv—” 

“Don't you ‘Christ’ me, Patrick bloody Donovan. I know you,” she said, and pointed a snickerdoodle in a gesture that was downright accusatory. “You’re feeling guilty, and you’d rather beat yourself up over it than actually _ deal _with it. Yeah, you fucked up, but that was years ago, and if you think the rest’v us are going to sit by and let you flagellate yourself with your own bootlace, fucking think again.”

That drew a laugh before he could help it, and he felt downright ashamed. It must have showed on his face, because his sister hit him in the head with a biscuit.

“You can accept you did wrong and not punish yourself for it,” she said. “You know what you did and you’ve not made any excuses for it. You’re sorry, so let that be enough. You won’t do anybody any favors otherwise.”

~

Unseen and unheard, Von Rached arched an eyebrow. While he could not honestly say he had ever acted the part of actual counselor, perhaps this was his cue to try. Siobhan’s conversation with her brother was about to be cut off by the arrival of three very shifty-eyed children, but Von Rached himself would have to ponder what to do. Mairead and Jerry were already invested in this, and were likely only going to become more so; it was in his best interest to at least attempt to give aid. Whether or not Patrick would hear him remained to be seen, as he still didn't know if _ Mairead _had actually registered anything he said to her.

He moved through the house, and wished, rather a lot, that he could physically affect anything at all. It was impossible to snoop when he could not really touch anything; add in his hobbled telepathy and he began to understand just how frustrated ordinary people could become.

Patrick’s room was as neat and clean as the kitchen, which left Von Rached with few clues. On the walls were framed photographs of his family — daughter, siblings, nieces and nephews — as well as pictures of what were very likely assorted places on the mountain. Plain green duvet and even plainer bedsted, but his bureau was surprisingly nice: satin-finished pine shiny with varnish, and solid brass handles on the drawers. There was a short backing-board carved with delicate leaves and vines. It was obviously a handmade item, but who exactly had made it was not clear.

The surface was empty save for a battered shoebox. The lid was off, so Von 

Rached could easily peer inside — it appeared to be a box of keepsakes. A small cloth doll with black yarn-hair, obviously put together by a child’s inexpert hands, as well as shells and smooth stones that no doubt had some significance, and the old stub of a movie ticket — quite old, given that was for the original _ Jurassic Park _movie. The print was faded, the corners soft and blunted. 

As a man who had once kept keepsakes, Von Rached knew well that few hung onto something that had no meaning at all, but this baffled him. The film came out years before even Patrick’s elder daughter was born, so it very obviously was not something he had seen with either of them. His siblings, at that point, had all been lost to him. As tempted as Von Rached was to dismiss it, it had to mean _ something. _

_ Later _, he told himself. If only he had someone — someone to act as an interpreter, because the finer details of the more prosaic sorts of humanity were still unknown to him. Clearly, research was in order, if that were at all possible. Perhaps his endless supply of documentaries would include at least one about modern human society.

~

Evening found Von Rached weary, which was something of a feat, honestly; death had taken physiological limitations from him. Perhaps it was merely the result of being around so very many people, even if he hadn't been forced to interact with them.

His flat seemed, dare he say it, _ homey _when he returned. The cat, as was its wont, had donated a luxuriant coating of fur to the back of the armchair, and yawned upon sight of him. Clearly he was meant to know his place in its tribble-like world.

"I don't suppose you have done anything of actual _ use _today, you monstrosity," he said, desert-dry. "Then again, perhaps I should count myself lucky if you have not destroyed something in my absence."

The cat yawned again, and stretched when it rose. It was such a furball that its legs were all but lost in all the fluff. One documentary he’d watched said that cats stretched so much when they woke because their brains paralyzed them while they slept, so they would not act out their dreams.

He fed the creature while the sun westerned, the sky a smear of crimson that darkened to purple and indigo even as he basted a chicken breast with herbs and olive oil. (Where his food came from was a mystery; his refrigerator held whatever he wished, and he knew there was no point in questioning it.) For some reason, however, his mind would not leave the items in the box on Pat’s dresser.

“Why the ticket?” he asked aloud; somehow, talking to himself felt less like a prelude to madness now that he had something else to talk _ to _. “The stones and the doll must be tied to his daughter in some fashion, but why such an old movie ticket?” It wasn’t even in good shape, so it could hardly be a collector’s item. 

“Do the math.”

For just a moment, Von Rached froze. That was not the Lady’s voice, and to his knowledge, she was the only one who had ever — or would ever — come to call on him. No, that voice was deep, male, and sounded unnervingly like Carson from _ Downton Abbey _(a program he would never have admitted to watching, but given it was set in a time period he’d lived through, it was nostalgic as well as entertaining).

He turned, but found no guests — no one and nothing save the cat, which stared at him with round eyes whose innocence was most likely feigned. That didn't change even when he stalked toward it, and stared down into its little face. “What?”

“Do the math.” The animal’s mouth didn't move, and yet there was no mistaking it — the voice was its. Hers.

“The Lady said you were female,” he said, and he could not keep the accusation from his tone.

“I am.” The creature still looked at him with artificial innocence. “But that is not the point. Do the math. Lorna the Younger was born in nineteen ninety-nine. _ Jurassic Park _was released six years earlier. Do. The. Math. Unless,” it added, “you are just that emotionally obtuse.”

Von Rached could not help but glare at it, for all he felt vaguely foolish in doing so. “Surely you know the answer to that already,” he said. “Much of humanity even yet baffles me.”

“You kept your copy of _ Gray’s Anatomy _,” the animal pointed out. “It pained you, yet you kept it.”

The wretched feline wasn’t wrong — he had indeed hung onto the _ Gray’s Anatomy _in which that infernal sprig of forget-me-not resided. Though he had no desire to ever touch it again, the flower held all the memories the Lady had taken from Lorna after her...assault. He still struggled to call it what it really was. 

Fortunately, it didn't take much more than a moment for him to catch up. “Patrick keeps this, even though it pains him?” he asked. Why — oh.

Oh.

“I knew you’d get there eventually,” the cat said. There was a smugness to its voice that made him briefly entertain the idea of shaving it. “The pair of you have something in common: he never stopped loving Grania, even once his own bad behavior drove her away. It’s true that he never did anything nearly as bad as what you did to Lorna, but his actions were spread out across nearly a decade.

“And what were his actions? Drugs? Alcoholism?”

“Both, along with violence against everyone who wasn’t Grania or their daughter. He was in lockup for fighting nearly as long as he was out of it.”

That...sounded rather like a Donovan. Von Rached really needed to get that chicken in the oven, however, so he returned to his dish. “It took her that long to throw him over?”

“He left her,” the cat said. “In the end he did her a favor, but Pat isn’t the only one who has never had a serious relationship since then.”

Surely that meant something, though Von Rached had no idea what. Considering the sheer amount of time he had spent studying other people, he knew appallingly little of how most of them worked. “Now she and his elder daughter have re-entered his life, even if indirectly, and what looks like the entire Donovan clan are already invested in it to a degree I personally find disturbing.” Yes, annoying though it was, he very likely needed to act as some form of counselor for the hapless (and possibly hopeless) Patrick.

Lovely. 

“Do you have any idea just how much irony lies in _ me _attempting to counsel anyone at all about relationships?” The question was as much to himself as to the cat. He’d killed Sigyn, albeit by accident, and arguably done even worse to Lorna, who had never been his in the first place. There were few things about which he could claim near-total ignorance, but this was one of them. And somehow, he doubted any amount of academic study would actually remedy that.

“Yes,” the cat said, “and no. You know what it is to destroy a relationship through your own actions — in your case, it was fatal. What would you do, should you discover Sigyn was near?”

Von Rached’s answer was as immediate as it was unhelpful: “Kill myself.”

~

_ Two wonderful things happened the next day: the sky cleared, and the ambulance drivers actually got to take a shower. Showers were luxuries normally reserved for patients, but evidently somebody had decided to take pity on the drivers (or were simply tired of smelling them). _

_ The showers were large and communal, but there had long since ceased to be anything like modesty among the women at the Front — they saved that for dealing with the men. As one nurse said, it wasn’t as though any of them had anything they others hadn't seen, and there was no room for squeamishness of any kind. By this point, they tended to be so grateful for the chance to be clean that they scarcely noticed anyone else. _

_ There wasn’t time to luxuriate in the hot water — it couldn’t be wasted — but it was still the best thing that had happened all week. Sigyn washed her hair three times, and gave the rest of her a scrub so brisk it left her skin faintly pink. The entire lot of them washed their underclothes and socks while they were at it, and sat wrapped in towels while the wet clothes dried over a radiator. _

_ “I miss being able to do this more than once a fortnight,” Greta said. She was attempting to comb out the wet, tangled mass of her sandy hair, which Sigyn privately thought she wore far too long for practicality — it was down to her waist, and thicker than any one person could ever need. _

_ “Me too.” Sigyn’s own hair was easier to deal with — she’d cut it so that the ends were level with the bottom of her rib cage. It had been something of a sacrifice, but the kind of hair that had been fashionable before the War was just too impractical. At this length she could still braid it and pin it out of the way, without needing half an hour to comb it. It could grow again whenever this dreadful war ended, and she was able to return to Iceland. _

_ Once dried and dressed, she went to inspect the ambulances one last time. Nothing had changed since the last time she did so, but it was an excuse to run the engines for a moment, and the rumble was oddly soothing to her. Mechanics were a highly unusual hobby for a woman, but her pappa had not been a believer in raising decorative, useless daughters; her curiosities, intellectual and practical, had been encouraged from a young age. If only one of them had been an interest in the German language...oh well. She got by well enough, even if she doubtless sounded entirely backward and simple to most native speakers. There was a certain value in being underestimated. _

_ When she reached Ambulance Number Five, she frowned. It had been moved, though she had no idea where it might have been taken in that snowstorm, or why. If that idiot Erich had destroyed the clutch again…she wouldn’t know until she could move it, but when she fired up the engine, her frown deepened. This was new. This was...unpleasant. _

_ She hopped out of the cab and laid a hand on the bonnet, which was still cold. The ambulance fleet had been kept in a garage that was at least not totally unheated, because they couldn’t be cold enough to freeze when water was added to the radiators again, and her breath rose in a cloud as she ran her hand along the bonnet. What was it...what was it? _

_ Grumbling silently to herself, she opened the bonnet. Nothing was visibly amiss with the engine, but there was a definite dissonance to its rhythm. One hand hovered just above it, while her long, pale fingers sought any errant air currents. “ _ _ Hvað er að þér?” she muttered. _

_ “Do you expect it to answer?” _

_ Fortunately, Sigyn managed to swallow her curse before it actually left her throat. She hadn't heard anyone approach, nor did she care to be interrupted. “Það gerir það,” she said, before her German kicked in. “It does. Engines speak, if you listen. Now hush.” _

_ To her relief, hush he did, whoever he was, while she bent all her concentration on the troubled engine before her. That was it — yes, that was it, and while she might not be able to lay the blame squarely on Erich’s inept driving, she was going to do it anyway. “Ég hef þig,” she whispered, with distinct satisfaction. This was not something she could fix without proper tools, but at least she knew what it was — and it meant that Erich the Idiotic was going nowhere. The poor hospital was stuck with him. _

_ Belatedly, she recalled that someone had spoken to her; when she turned, she found it was the young doctor who was not actually a doctor, watching her with curious pale eyes. “Apologies,” she said. “Engine, it has broken...gír tönn.” She didn't know the German for ‘gear tooth’, but she doubted this doctor would, either, unless he was a connoisseur of engines. “It goes nowhere.” _

_ “How do you know?” he asked her, while his strange eyes strayed to the engine. _

_ “They speak,” she reiterated. “When you know their language, you understand.” She’d have to drain the radiator again, but that shouldn’t take long. “I am sorry, you are stuck with Erich. Make him carry something and he leaves you alone.” _

_ Pure, unreserved laughter followed her words — it had been so long since she’d heard anyone truly laugh that it was strangely jarring. “And you?” _

_ “I go back. Front. You know what I mean.” Damn her German, but at least this man wasn’t laughing at her. She hadn't thought much on his appearance one way or another when they first met, aside from his height and unsettling eyes (and notable lack of eyebrows), but he really was quite nice on the eyes when he was amused. It made him look rather more human. (Really, from a closer vantage point, he was quite nice on the eyes in general. It had been a while since she’d had the time or energy to notice such a thing, but now she was fed, rested, and not blind.) _

_ “Come and eat before you leave,” he said. “I would hear more about that engine. I know little of automobiles.” _

_ She was hardly going to argue with an offer of food. It would be a long drive, after all. _

_ Von Rached watched her with renewed interest as she lowered the auto’s bonnet. He understood nothing at all of her names for the assorted parts of the engine, but he suspected they would, at present, have made no more sense in German. _

_ No, the interesting thing — the absolutely fascinating thing — lay in her ability to diagnose a problem by sound alone. While he needed to plumb the minds of other mechanics, he strongly doubted there were many — if any — who could do it with such precision. He saw just what a ‘gír tönn’ was within her mind, and to hear a flaw in such a small thing, over the noise of an engine...it bore contemplation. _

_ It also bore observation, if she could somehow be kept at the hospital. Perhaps the apparently hapless Erich could be sent in her stead, so that she might repair the vehicle herself. Von Rached would have to discover just whose minds he would need to suborn to ensure such a thing, before the ambulance drivers left. _

_ The pair of them made their way to the cafeteria, which at such an early hour was lightly populated. There was little enough to eat, but he didn't need to read Sigyn’s mind to see how much she appreciated even just toast and tea. Such an underfed creature — her already elfin features were sharpened into something more overtly fae, as though she were a changeling left by the Fair Folk. A changeling with an ability he could not yet explain. _

_ Yes, he needed to ensure she stayed right here. _

_ ~ _

_ As it turned out, Fate smiled on Von Rached, though the same could not be said for poor Sigyn. She had gone about her morning while he sought the minds of those who might command her to stay, only to be stymied by the fact that the drivers received their orders from the Front. Since he could hardly hope to influence anyone so far away, he was faced with the task of thwarting her in some other way. _

_ And then the truly hapless Erich hit her with an ambulance. _

_ The courtyard outside the hospital’s front doors was, of course, slick with ice, and there was no rock salt to spare for it. Able-bodied students had been tasked with breaking it up as best they could, but no sane driver would have dared it until the sun had shone on it long enough to cause any appreciable melting. _

_Erich, however, got his hands on a functional ambulance_ _(god only knew_ how_), and made the simple, critical, idiotic error of trying to brake on ice. His ambulance careened, slow but inexorable, into a knot of people before half of them could get out of the way — including the unfortunate Sigyn, who wound up flung across the ice like a doll._

_ Von Rached did not actually see any of it happen, but he pulled a number of memories from those who had (or who had been unlucky enough to participate). Three drivers, including Sigyn, had fallen victim to the rogue vehicle, as well as a nurse and two doctors. _

_ Judging by the sheer volume of pained noises, nobody was dead, though most foolishly tried to get to their feet. Given that they had all landed on ice, Von Rached could hardly blame them, but it was foolish nevertheless, for they could not yet know who might have badly injured a neck or spine. _

_ He was among the doctors who plunged out into the cold, careful as a cat on the ice. Sigyn was hissing in Icelandic, and he didn't need to read her mind to know she was cursing. At least it meant she was fully conscious and aware, though her left leg was bent at a terribly odd angle, and an abrasion on her brow oozed bright red. _

_ “Do not move yet,” he said, as he knelt beside her. “I know that is easier said than done, but you risk further injury.” While he could not heal her, he _ could _ dull her pain — and he was wise enough to infuse his expression with something like concern, because he had learned just how unsettling he was when he did not. _

_ “What happened?” she groaned. Her face was nearly as pale as the snow, which made the blood on her brow all the more brilliant. Perhaps he should not have taken so much of her pain, because the ragged edges of shock tugged at her mind. _

_ “Erich the Idiot’s failure to drive.” There was no point in lying — not when she would discover it later. “If that is a typical example of his skill, I question why he is allowed anywhere near the Front.” _

_ Sigyn did not answer him, and he fought a frown. Her thoughts were blurring, but he had no time to debate his next course of action — two doctors approached with a stretcher, and within thirty seconds she was whisked away. Von Rached followed, because he had yet to see the hospital’s X-Ray machine in use. That her leg was broken was obvious, and he could not help being pleased by it; she was going absolutely nowhere now. _


	5. Chapter Five

_Von Rached could not quite believe he was doing this, but at this point, it wasn’t as though he had anything to lose._

_It was not Patrick’s mind that he entered this night, but Grania’s. Lorna’s brother’s was likely a morass of guilt, which was utterly useless to him (and hit, quite honestly, rather too close to home), but Grania’s would hopefully prove far more illuminating. Obviously she was single now, but there had been no mention of a relationship after Pat, nor did she have any more children. Perhaps that meant something, though it might take the wretched cat to explain it to him. Once upon a time he might have found that humiliating, but it wasn’t as though there were any to see him._

_The woman’s mind was...tedious. Her cares and worries were exactly what one might expect — worry for her daughter, worry about her own health. Fully understandable concerns that anyone with any sense would have. She might have had terrible taste in men, but from what he could see, she seemed to have always been a good mother; within her memories there were flashes of her daughter at various ages, always clean and cared for and loved, no matter how poor they might have been. None of that was any help at all, dammit._

_But why had she remained single? There were several obvious options, but Von Rached had no idea which was the right one, or if it was something else entirely. Grania’s tidy, utterly ordinary mind was surprisingly opaque in places, and his ability to read it extremely limited._

_Eventually, he gave up. He could always return later, and perhaps it had been too much to hope that he would find what he sought on his first venture._

_~_

_Von Rached went next to Mairead, who had been so well-behaved that he still had no idea if she had registered his words or not._ _Her dreams were a far more interesting jumble: they included, among other things, zombies on flying sleds and aliens who abducted her family while they were watching some Christmas film. Rather amusingly, dream-Lorna knocked them out with a half-brick in a sock, which he was fairly certain she had actually done at some point._

_The dream shifted to a drunk man plowing into a tree on a snowmobile while wearing a Boba Fett helmet — which, according to her memory, had actually happened, or so said her father. No sooner had it done so, however, than everything within her mind...paused. Von Rached did not feel her wake, but there was a sudden awareness quite apart from any dream._

Who are you?

_Somehow, even lacking a body, he felt a surge of adrenaline he refused to identify as panic. It was the work of a moment to draw away—_

Von Rached woke, heart thundering, to find moonlight streaming through the window and the cat asleep on his other pillow.

How had she known anyone was there? He had done nothing at all to interfere or communicate — nothing to alert her to the fact that there was another presence in her mind at all.

Sleep wasn’t going to be found again any time soon, so he rose to make some tea. The Lady had been quite definite in her instructions to remain unseen and unknown, but of course his daughter would be able to sense his presence. 

Of one thing was he entirely certain, as he filled the kettle at the tap: he needed to stay away from her mind for a while. She would be on her guard now, alert and aware, and he needed to give her at least a fortnight of uninterrupted sleep.

Would she tell Jerry? Perhaps not, given this was the first time she had felt anyone intrude upon her dreams (or so he hoped). A single instance might be written off as a fluke, so Von Rached simply needed to make certain it was exactly that, for some while yet.

Dammit. Lorna’s mind was utterly out of the question, Ratiri likely did not have the information he needed, and if Mairead could sense him, Jerry might be able to as well. Perhaps it needed to be Patrick after all.

“You’ll get there.” The cat, naturally, had followed him; it sat now atop his refrigerator. 

“I don't suppose you could give me a hint?” he asked, not a little sourly.

The cat’s big, round eyes blinked. “You are right to wonder why Grania remained single, after Patrick. Your theories are also valid; the answer is not something you have not thought of.”

Von Rached sighed. “If someone had told me, even the day I died, that I would one day have cause to pay attention to the past love life of Lorna’s elder brother, I would have thought them mad.” He suspected he might well come to regret accepting this...challenge. Perhaps his existence had been something approximating lonely, but he’d quite forgotten just how maddening other humans could be. 

“You wished to live a more interesting afterlife, did you not?”

He glared at the cat. “I don't consider Lorna’s brother’s decades-old failed relationship to be anywhere close to interesting. They are both so tediously human.”

Somehow, despite the fact that the cat had no visible face, it nevertheless managed to convey disapproval. “And you are not human?”

_That _actually made him pause. “Of course I am,” he said. “Technically. I was called inhuman far more than once, however, and always in accusation.” Even Von Rached was aware just how emotionally stunted he actually was.

“You didn't find Sigyn tedious, even before you developed a romantic interest in here,” the cat pointed out. “Why was that?”

Once again, he paused, because it was actually something of a good question. “I was so young,” he said eventually, even as he fetched a skillet. “I was young, and I had seen so few other people until my mother died that there was novelty even in those who were common and dull. Sigyn was far from dull, even from the outset. And after more than a century, I have no interest in humanity purely for its own sake.” 

Yes, he knew what that sounded like. No, he did not care. Von Rached had never pretended that he was not intensely selfish, and he certainly did not deny it now. He fetched a carton of eggs from the refrigerator, while the cat contemplated.

“And now I must stay away from my daughter’s mind — and very likely my son’s as well,” he grumbled. “How I am to be of any use to either, I now have little idea. The Lady was rather definite in her insistence that I betray my presence to no one.”

“You are a very smart man,” the cat said blandly. “I’m sure you will figure something out.”

~

Lorna had been certain she would meet her niece, but she hadn't thought it would happen so soon. There were, after all, plenty of other telepathic teachers in the DMA; they didn't need to cross paths at all if the young woman didn't want to. Unfortunately, the poor woman was a Donovan — when they got hit with a Gift, they got hit hard, and that could be hazardous to the health of everyone around them until they got it under control.

“She must have been stressed,” Katje said, as the pair of them wound their way to the hospital. She automatically shortened her stride just a little, so that Lorna wouldn’t have to run to keep up — which would have been kind of impossible anyway, in this crowd. “I don't know by what, but I will find out.”

“What did she do?” Lorna asked.

Katje sighed. “You will see when you get there. I have to wonder if your eyes are a curse.”

Lorna stared at her, and nearly ran into a woman with a mobile glued to her ear. _What in hell does _that _mean? _

_It means that she has the green eyes, like you and Saoirse and Eris, and something lives behind hers, too._

_Are you fucking — _Lorna would have halted, if Katje hadn't hustled her onward. _Katje, that’s daft. That’s not how genetics work. _She didn't need to be a doctor to know that much.

_You live in a world with magic, and you think that is impossible? Look at all of you, Lorna, all of your family. Your siblings all have hazel eyes, and they are as stable as any Donovan is ever going to be. Your twins and Eris’ twins don't have this...this blankness, but you and Saoirse and Eris…_

Lorna scowled up at her friend, who seemed utterly unmoved. _Eris has only lost her shit like that once in her entire life, _she said. _I’m not sure it even was the Blank, and neither is Siobhan. Saoire’s had what, twice? Three times? And it hasn’t happened to me in ages._

_Because you know how to control it now. _Katje gave her a look of mingled sympathy and unease. _You taught Eris and Saoirse, but this Lorna has had no one to teach her. Her mother says this is not the first time she has done this, but it _is _the first time she was able to do very much damage._

“Oh, good Jesus,” Lorna groaned aloud. What a way to meet someone who hadn't wanted to meet with you in the first place. Yes, she’d taught Eris, but Eris was the most pragmatic human being Lorna had ever met in her life. Saoirse...was still a risk. The twins knew this, which was part of why they spent so much time together when they weren’t at home. Katje really couldn’t fairly say that Lorna had taught the girl anything at all, so how was she meant to fix this in someone she didn't know? 

_You never actually fixed _yourself_, _she thought, and fought a sigh. She’d mastered her own mental demon out of sheer spite — it might have been effective, but it hadn't been healthy, and she wasn’t going to replicate the circumstances that had forced her to subsume it. In this, she might not be any use at all.

It was a thought she sat on, hard, until they actually reached the hospital. It was always busy, but there seemed to be rather more personnel running about than normal — the fact that they were running at all was rather unnerving. Jesus, what did her niece _do_?

Her nose wrinkled at the harsh sharpness of disinfectant and floor wax, which even after all these years was all-too-reminiscent of the Institute. Katje hustled her along, which was somewhat easier now that they weren’t surrounded on all sides by far too many other people. Now there was the scent of electronics, and something very like Febreeze. Katje’s heels (why in mother _fuck _did she wear those torture devices?) clicked across the tile, all the way to Ward Five.

Iron was the only thing that could dampen a Gift, but it had occurred to the medical staff that the prison was no place for someone who simply couldn’t control their Gift. The result had been Ward Five — like the prison, the rooms were made of iron, but they were hospital rooms, not cells. They had the same sinks and cabinets, the same beds as the rest of the hospital; even the iron wasn’t visible. It had been tucked behind bland walls, no different from any other. Those who meant no actual harm weren’t going to be treated like criminals, but they could — and would — be contained.

A woman stood outside one door — pale, dark-haired, her face pinched with worry. Her hazel eyes roved over Lorna’s face with a certain level of wariness.

“It is all right, Grania,” Katje said. “Lorna will help her.”

“Jesus, you’re a Donovan, all right,” the woman said. Her accent was strongly Dublin, and her gaze lingered a moment on Lorna’s blind eye, as so many did.

“We all look like this,” Lorna said. “No, I don't know why. Let’s go take a look at your daughter, and somebody can bloody well tell me what happened already.” She cast a baleful look at Katje, who still didn't seem ruffled.

“She’s well out,” Grania whispered, even as she opened the door. “One’v the other telepaths knocked her out for now, just to make it all...well, stop.”

That was spectacularly unhelpful. The young woman was indeed unconscious, her dark hair fanned over her pillow. She looked rather younger than twenty-six, too; something about the Donovan face just refused to age normally.

“What happened?” Lorna asked, just as quietly. 

Grania swallowed. “It — something comes over her, sometimes,” she said. “This is only the third time it’s happened, really — you know, this badly.”

Lorna eyed her. “She goes blank, doesn’t she? Everything in her mind just shuts off, and all that’s left is rage.”

“I — yeah,” Grania said. “I guess ‘blank’ is the best way to put it. I’m not sure what set her off, but her telekinesis went absolutely haywire. She’s put eight people in hospital, and the cafeteria...Christ, this won’t get us evicted, will it?”

There was so much anguish in the woman’s voice that Lorna nearly winced. “No,” she said. “Your Lorna’s not alone in that, but I’m going to need to take a look at her mind. If she’s anything like the rest’v us, it might not even have been anything very nasty.”

Lorna really, really didn't like going into somebody’s mind without consent, but waking this woman would be an utterly terrible idea. Unconscious, her thoughts were quiet; the thing that live behind her eyes was, for now, contained. She didn't so much as twitch when Lorna sat on the edge of her bed.

_If she absolutely had to go into this woman’s head, at least she didn't have to go very far. This young Lorna’s last memory, before the Blank took hold of her, was a young man bumping into her in a cafeteria — a young man who used it as an opportunity to cop a not-so-discreet feel. Classy, but that alone shouldn’t have triggered this; Katje was likely right in saying the poor woman was already incredibly tense._

_There were a few perfectly logical possibilities, but Lorna wasn’t going to go deep-diving into her niece’s brain to find out. The only thing she sought was the Blank; thanks to Saoirse, she knew well enough what _it _felt like from the outside. It was horrifyingly alien, even though it was so woven into their being that excising it wholly was impossible. It could only be subsumed — she herself was proof of that. Her own had lain dormant ever since she’d killed Thorvald, banished to some deep, dark cupboard at the very back of her mind. Unfortunately, she really didn't know how to teach that ability to anyone else, for all she’d tried with Saoirse._

When she returned to the real world, she sighed. “Grania, I know this is asking a fair bit, but you and your Lorna really ought to come live with my family on the mountain for a bit,” she said. “You don't have to see or talk to Pat — he lives on the mountain, but it’s a big place and you’re unlikely to run into him. I’ll tell him to keep to his own place, and my family can go visit him at his home. I can help your daughter a whole lot better if she’s close.”

Grania’s expression was, however briefly, an agony of indecision. Lorna couldn’t exactly blame her — from all Pat had said, their relationship had gone really, _really _sour — but this was the most practical course of action.

“None’v us are like Pat was,” Lorna said. “It’s peaceful at our place, unless we’ve got visitors, and you can’t beat autumn on a mountain. My kids are cute and my husband’s really easy on the eyes,” she added, and tried to stifle a grin at the other woman’s suddenly thoughtful expression.

“Why don't you think about it,” Katje said. “Your Lorna can stay asleep for a while.”

“She ought to be fine when she wakes,” the elder Lorna said. “Once the blank’s over, it’s totally over.” _Until the next time._

~

Von Rached, unseen and mercifully unnoticed, watched the entire scene with utter fascination. He’d had no real chance to study the Blank when Lorna was his prisoner, and the few others he’d known who suffered from the nameless condition had slowly lost their minds. It took someone as stubborn as Lorna to beat the thing into submission, and he strongly doubted it was a trait this niece had inherited. Unless her childhood was horribly abusive — and it did not seem that it had been — she would have had no reason to develop it.

_And she will never undergo the things I put her namesake through_, he thought. Grim though it was, Lorna’s time as his prisoner had strengthened and honed her power; it had fed on the force of pure spite.

_Of course it could. You know what it looks like. You know what it feels like, within and without. Given time, you could have taken it from Lorna._

Yes, he likely could have, and he strongly doubted either this younger Lorna nor her other niece had minds that would have proven any real impediment to him. Now, though...the Lady had given him very limited access to the minds of his charges, and he could not fault her for it. Trust him though she seemed to, she had no guarantee at first that he would behave himself. He hoped he had proven himself, because he could not do this without the fullness of his former power. The thought that he might not be able to do it at all was one he simply refused to entertain.

He left Lorna to it, and made his way through the busy corridors. Mairead’s science course would meet today, and he intended to watch it.

~

_When Sigyn woke, she had no idea where she was, how she’d got there, or why she’d been asleep in the first place. She was truly warm for the first time in ages, on a bed piled with blankets, but both mind and eyes refused to focus immediately. Why did she have an actual bed? Why did she feel as though she were floating?_

_Memory returned in bits and pieces, and she groaned. Erich...had she not been borne along by a haze of morphine, she would have fought her way to her feet and hunted him down without remorse. As it was, she couldn’t bring herself to even try to move. She had a mattress. She had blankets, and a pillow, and nobody was trying to make her do anything. _

_Dimly, she realized that her left leg was suspended slightly; trying to bend it did nothing, as did trying to roll her ankle, though she could wiggle her toes. Her muzzy mind eventually realized it was immobilized by a plaster cast._

Ó skítur.

_A broken leg...she couldn’t drive with a broken leg, and if she couldn’t drive, what was she going to do? Even through her fog of opiates, dull fear gripped her. The hospital wasn’t likely to turn her out immediately, but if another wave of soldiers came in, that might well be another story. She was a foreigner. If space was needed, she’d surely be the first to go._

_There was something stuck to her forehead; when her fingers explored it, she found a plaster, held in place by bandages wrapped round her head. What else might be wrong? Until the morphine wore off, she had no way of knowing. _

What will I do, if I can’t drive? Where will I go? _She was young and strong, but if her leg weakened from disuse, her youth wouldn’t do her much good at all — and her gender didn't help. Her German was too poor for her to act as any kind of teacher or radio operator or...or anything like that. She could probably disguise herself as a boy without much effort, but that would do nothing for her German skills, or lack thereof._

_Whether it was weariness or morphine, her worry dulled nearly as soon as it formed. For now she was warm and safe enough. That would have to do._

~

_Von Rached had no time to personally monitor Sigyn for the next three days, because they were taken up by classes. One of the acquaintances he’d made while at work in the hospital took care of that for him, and reported that she was quite worried, in the odd amounts of time she was fully lucid. _

_Her fear was rather understandable, because it was hardly unfounded. She really would be the first to go, but perhaps he could use that. Should the hospital discharge her when she was still unable to work, she would have to go somewhere, and the home he had secured was far too big for one person and three servants. _

_When he arrived home on the evening of the third day, he sought his housekeeper. Frau Berger was a typical specimen of her kind: stout, no-nonsense, hyper-efficient, and seemingly born middle-aged, with a rosy face and a bun of brown hair streaked with grey. Von Rached had been content to let her do as she felt best throughout much of the house; he spent most of his time at home in the sitting-room, so it was one of the few he paid much mind to. She seemed to enjoy fussing with the rest of the house, and he saw no reason to stop her._

_Somehow, she and Frau Meyer (his utterly unflappable cook, who appeared to have better connections to the black market than he himself did) always managed to have tea waiting, no matter what hour he returned, and somehow contrived to have a full meal assembled inside of fifteen minutes. How that was possible, he had no idea, but he would allow the ladies to maintain their secret ways. He had gathered from both of their minds that he was quite a nice employer, as he didn't interfere in their running of the household._

_Now, however, he drew Frau Berger into the sitting-room. Though the ceiling was high, it stayed warm even in these bitterly cold days, for the house was wired for electricity — there was a radiator in every room. It also meant electric lamps — in this case, two of them, with imitation Tiffany shades in reds and yellows, that sat atop a pair of mahogany end-tables that were likely over a century old. Two sofas with matching wing-chairs in deep green brocade, their cushions aligned with such military precision that it seemed a shame to sit on them, faced one another beside the disused fireplace._

_Naturally, Frau Berger refused to sit even when bidden, and he reflected that he really ought to look into just how one was meant to deal with one’s servants. That had all fallen to his mother when he was a child; unsurprisingly, she had never managed to keep any for long, and as a result, he really had little idea just how much familiarity was too much._

_“I may well be moving someone in here, Frau Berger,” he said. “One of the ambulance drivers wounded in the...fiasco...several days ago. A second bedroom will need to be prepared, and you and Frau Meyer will, I suspect, need to act as chaperones. This driver is a woman, and I doubt she would be willing to move into a house with a strange man if there were no other women present.” Fraus Meyer and Berger would likewise keep any tiresome tongues from wagging among his friends and fellow students._

_There was something absolutely fascinating about the way his housekeeper managed to convey surprise, curiosity, and vague disapproval all at once, and all without a single overt shift in expression. Von Rached found himself hard-pressed not to laugh._

_“I have no ill intentions, Frau Berger,” he said. “She has a broken leg, among other injuries, and can do no work until she has healed. The hospital will not, I think, allow her to stay so long, and I can hardly see her turned out onto the street.”_

_His housekeeper’s non-expression softened a fraction. “Yes, Mein Herr,” she said. “That is very kind of you. And what will the young lady require?”_

_“Everything, most likely. If she has any possessions save those she carried when she arrived, they’re still at the Front,” he said. “She is tall and slender, but her exact measurements are of no matter yet — she is hardly going to go calling in her condition.”_

_“Mein Herr...is she aware you intend to do this?” Frau Berger asked, as delicately as she could._

_“Not yet,” he said. “We are acquainted, but nothing more. That is why you and Frau Meyer will be critical in laying any worries she might have to rest. If you are unable to assist her with any intimate matters that might arise, I will engage a nurse.” He was not, after all, a doctor just yet, and that distinction might prove important to Sigyn._

_“Unless it involves a complex medical procedure, Mein Herr, I believe I can manage.” Her face gave nothing away, but her mind itched to ask him all sorts of questions that were not actually her place to ask. No, she did not fully trust his intentions toward his mystery woman, but he did not take it personally; any unmarried man who would bring a woman into his home who was not blood kin would seem suspicious no matter what._

_“That will be all, Frau Berger,” he said. “I leave ordering the necessities to your discretion.”_

_She left him with a curtsey, and he eyed the room. Three of the four walls had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, nearly filled with volumes both purchased and inherited. Science might be Von Rached’s true passion, but his interests were broad — he had books on everything from astronomy to history to horticulture, arranged by both alphabet and type. The servants had access to them, so long as they were careful, but it seemed his collection had yet to be disturbed by any save himself._

And yet I need more, _he thought. Somehow, he had to acquire materials for learning the Icelandic language, as well as whatever manuals might be available in regards to automobiles. His studies did not take the whole of his free time by any means, and this new quest for knowledge would be an excuse to avoid as many dull parties as he could. A measure of social interaction was necessary to make useful connections, but too much of it swiftly began to grate._

_Outside the arched windows, the sky darkened once more with heavy clouds; if the ambulance drivers had not left already, they would be trapped in short order. It also meant that he had best bring Sigyn here as soon as possible, even though he would likely have to tamper with her mind to get her to agree. Desperate or not, she was too intelligent to simply move in with a near-stranger. He would have to ensure that the hospital knew where she was going, for it might ease her mind to know that she was not simply disappearing without a trace._


	6. Chapter Six

“Do you think the Lady will do as you ask?” 

Von Rached glowered at the cat, which sat perched atop his refrigerator like a gargoyle made of fuzz. The wretched beast had knocked his coffee cup over, and did not look in the least guilty.

"I will not know until I ask," he said, as he wiped the counter down. Fortunately the cup had been only half full, because even that was mess enough. Honestly, the cat was rather bizarre — it spoke, it clearly had human-level cognition, and yet it also displayed truly feline attributes. Was it an artifact of the body? Did being cat-shaped influence its instinct? 

"What will you do if she says no?"

He arched an eyebrow. "I am a clever man," he said dryly. "I will surely think of something." 

Something other than Sigyn, haunt his dreams though she did. He'd fancied himself so very clever then, unaware just how naïve he truly was. He was not naïve now, and could do what none other might — if he was allowed his full power. 

"And what is it that you intend, Doctor? What would you do, if I granted you what you ask?"

By now, Von Rached was hardly surprised by the Lady's drop-in visits, though this was the first time she had sat at his table. Her ancient, dark eyes regarded him with a scrutiny that would have made a lesser man squirm.

"Why do you ask?" He was genuinely curious. "My mind is open to you. I could conceal nothing, even if I wished to."

"I would rather hear it from you." Though her tone was mild, he was not nearly stupid enough to believe this too was not some manner of test.

"The Blank," he said. "You know exactly what I speak of. I can fix it."

"You sound very sure of yourself. You did not take it from Lorna." Still her eyes watched, razor-sharp.

Von Rached fought the urge to roll his eyes, and somehow succeeded. "By the time I understood it well enough, I had neither means nor opportunity. Lorna would not have trusted me, and I could hardly have faulted her for it. Her nieces, on the other hand...Lady, you know that Lorna won’t try, for fear of the damage she might cause.”

The Lady made no immediate reply, so he sat facing her. The aura of her power was so immense that he felt it right down to his teeth, but it did not unsettle him. If she wished him harm, he’d know it by now.

“And if I returned your power,” she said at last, “what else would you do?”

The question made Von Rached pause. “Nothing,” he said. “But surely you know that as well.”

“What I wonder is if _you _know.” Still she watched him, as though picking him apart with her gaze. “You still think yourself a villain, deep in your heart. Can you honestly tell me there is no chance you will self-sabotage, in some effort to prove to yourself that you are right?”

Von Rached stared at her, and did not answer for a long, long while. The cat sprang up onto the table, and stared at him in turn.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I care nothing for Lorna’s nieces, but to harm them in any way would cause her pain, and that I will not do. She has suffered enough on my account as it is. Should something tempt me to abuse my power, she would stay my hand, even if she never knew it.”

The Lady glanced at the cat, though what communication passed between them was unknown to him. “I will grant you what you wish,” she said at last, “on one condition: tell me why you go to such lengths to atone for your sins against Lorna, and not at all for what you did to Sigyn.”

The answer to that came surprisingly easily, thanks mainly to the dreams he was still unable to escape. “What I did to Sigyn was pure accident,” he said. “Yes, it was my fault, but it was the result of a moment’s panic. I had no wish at all to hurt her — I simply wanted to keep her from running. Lorna…”

Only now did he look away, and for once he actually hesitated. “I wanted to hurt Lorna,” he said, his voice laden with a depth of self-loathing that defied all description. “I was so enraged I could scarcely think, and yet what thought I had was bent upon punishing her for so thoroughly resisting me. I loved her, and I hated her for the power she held over me, though she had never asked for it. There...there is no comparison at all between Sigyn’s death and Lorna’s...everything.”

He was surprised and appalled when his eyes actually blurred with tears — never in life had he wept, even as a child, and yet he couldn't have stopped it now if he tried. It was Lorna’s memories that haunted him — the memories the Lady took from her, and visited upon him in punishment — because they were, incredibly, easier to deal with than his own. Hers were his eternal penance, but his own were another story entirely.

“I could scarcely think...at first,” he said, though it wasn’t much more than a whisper. “Rage all but blinded me — I understood, in that moment, just why wrath brought out such violence in Lorna. 

“But then...there was a point I could have stopped. I could have walked away, and wrought no further damage to her mind or spirit. I could have, and I did not.” Now he could barely speak at all — and he certainly couldn’t look at the Lady. He had no words for what else he had done on that hateful night — not all of it had been pain. Not remotely, and she had been aware the entire time, her mind utterly at war with what he made body feel. It was a mercy the Lady had taken her memories, or she might have gone insane.

“I know,” she said gently, “and Lorna never will. She has recovered, Doctor — she no longer bears any scars on your account, in mind nor on body. You seek atonement now for your own sake. Yes, you wish now to do the right thing, but for the wrong reasons.”

Von Rached forced himself to look at her. There was no loathing in her ancient eyes, though surely there ought to have been. For once, he had no idea at all what she meant.

His confusion must have been obvious, for she went on. “You said it yourself: you care nothing for Lorna’s nieces. You only care about anything insofar as its connection to Lorna or your children.”

He could hardly argue with that; indeed, he’d readily admit it.

“I will grant you what you wish for a week’s time, but with it comes a price.” The Lady was always difficult to read, but just now he couldn't begin to guess what now passed through her mind. “If you are to keep the fullness of your power, you must come to understand why you should care.”

She was gone before he could ask her just what she meant by that, and yet he did not really need to. He might not like it, but he knew exactly what she meant.

Mercifully, the cat remained silent while he fixed himself a drink (a shot of Fireball in a cup of hot cider; from what he’d seen in Lorna’s mind, it was a favorite of hers).

The armchair beckoned, but instead he went outside, under the golden sky. It was chilly enough that the warmth of the mug was quite welcome, even if the drink itself was rather like hot, liquid cinnamon candy. Definitely not a drink he would have ever chosen, but just now, it was apt.

That there was a selfish component to his attempts at redemption was no surprise, really; it would have been miraculous if there were not. Even yet, Von Rached didn't possess a single shred of pure altruism, and he genuinely didn't understand why he should. Why should motivation matter? The horrible experiments he’d done to his patients had all been in the name of science, not personal sadism, but that made them no less terrible. The general scientific community had benefited from his work, but that in no way mitigated the damage and suffering he’d doled out to obtain it.

Why, then, should it matter in reverse? What was wrong in dying for a woman he’d both loved and wronged beyond all hope of redress? There had been nothing selfish in his determination to send her back to the land of the living; if anything, that had been the one and only truly altruistic thing he’d ever done.

He sipped his drink, and grimaced a bit at the sweetness. Nothing he did could ever truly atone for what he’d done to Lorna, but that wouldn’t stop him trying until the day she too died. Whether or not it ever even crossed her mind at this point, the fact remained that she had to live with it, even if she didn't remember. Poor Sigyn had died, and gone immediately what he was certain was a comforting afterlife; she had not lived with his betrayal of her.

And now he had to understand why he should care about others — the proper reason, since he was quite certain, ‘if I don't, you’ll take my magic away again’ wouldn’t cut it.

~

Grania hadn't known what to expect of the Duncan house, but it was absolutely lovely. Her flat in Dublin hadn't exactly been a hovel, but it was...a flat. A small, ordinary flat, in the middle of a city she’d lived in all her life — and which she found she didn't miss.

Her Lorna was a bit too blizted to really take it (or much of anything) in. Ratiri had her on what he called aura-Xanax, which was exactly what it sounded like: he kept her aura so free of everything but peace that the Blank had no chance of reasserting itself. She could at least help put her room together; fortunately, the Duncan household had spare bedrooms, so nobody would be sleeping on the sofa. That those rooms had apparently once belonged to Pat and his younger daughter was a fact Grania really wasn’t ready to deal with yet, so she wouldn’t.

It was so _calm _here. It was warm enough to open the window, and the fresh mountain air poured in — so much cleaner than the air of Dublin, which hadn't exactly been terribly polluted to begin with. It was filled with the distant song of birds she couldn’t hope to name, and the sun cast golden squares on the opposite wall.

It was so odd to think that Lorna the Elder (for so Grania thought of her) was related to Pat. If not for their downright eerie family resemblance, she wouldn’t have believed it. Lorna was everything Pat had not been — but then, she was also in her fifties. She’d had quite a while to figure things out, and from what she’d said, she’d had a lot of that to do in her earlier life.

She’d put Grania in Pat’s younger daughter’s room, since, as she put it, “You’re probably not going to want to live in his space.” Lorna the Younger had been installed in the room Sharley normally occupied; Sharley herself, if she was even around, would just take the spare room.

This one was — well, somewhat surreal. Unlike every other spare room Grania had ever seen, it wasn’t at all like a hotel room. The bed was covered in a truly crazy quilt, and two of the fat pillows had shams to match. Two walls were pale green, and the other two pale yellow; it made the sunlight even brighter. They were filled with framed pictures — some photographs, and others beautifully intricate drawings. 

Two of the latter were so realistic that she initially thought they were photos, until she leaned in closer. One of them was a waterfall at sunrise, the water glittering pink and gold; the other was of Lorna’s twins and a little girl who must be Sharley’s daughter, seated around a campfire roasting marshmallows. 

“Saoirse did those.” Lorna the Elder was quiet as a bloody cat, and her voice made Grania jump. “The photos are Ratiri’s, but all the art in here’s Saoirse’s. Nobody knows where she got her talent from, because it sure as hell wasn't any Donovan.”

Grania’s eyes traveled from the pictures to Lorna, and back again. “How old is she?”

“Fourteen, not that you’d know it to look at her. She’s a runt like the rest’v us, and she’s a bit different in the head. Asperger’s.”

The thought of _Pat _taking care of a special needs child just did not compute, and Grania wasn’t about to force it. She smelled tea and biscuits, and was glad enough to follow Lorna out into the kitchen.

~

Von Rached had forgotten just how intoxicating the full force of his power truly was. When he arrived in the world of the living, at first he did nothing but savor it. Yes, he knew better than to simply read the minds of all and sundry, as he would once have done, but he didn't need to. He didn't need to actively use it to relish its existence.

Of the two girls, he realized that the younger Lorna would be easier — and safer — to study. So long as Saoirse remained near the twins, Von Rached was somewhat leery of interfering with her; Mairead’s ability to sense him in her dreams had made him less inclined to interfere with anyone with whom she had close contact.

No, the younger Lorna it was. He’d thought his Lorna’s sister had seemed like her twin, but this woman might well have been her clone, eyes and all. In all his long life, he’d very rarely seen a family whose members all so closely resembled one another, and he wished he had any opportunity to figure out why.

The young woman sat now in the Duncan backyard, a mug of tea in her hand. Bees buzzed lazily in the rose arbor, and he found that he wished he could smell it. He could well imagine it, and the cool purity of a mountain morning, but he couldn’t actually _experience _it. It was a thought to hang onto until he got home, and his own environment would do as he wished it to. For now, there was this Lorna.

_Von Rached was still unused to being a truly passive observer in another’s mind; death had put him out of practice, and at first he did nothing save linger in the foremost of this young woman’s thoughts. He found that he could experience sensations through her — smell the mingling of ginger tea and roses, the morning air still chilly against his skin. That, too, was catalogued and savored; he would relive it when he had the time._

_He ventured deeper into her mind, but very carefully. In life, his telepathy had so often been a brutal thing, but now he drifted like smoke, formless and ephemeral, borne along by the gentle current of conscious and unconscious thought. His gifts might currently have a time limit, but this could not be hurried._

_Younger Lorna’s cares and concerns were, like her mother’s, largely banal and straightforward, and he wondered anew how he was meant to care about them — and why he ought to. Already she seemed a pragmatic sort, at least, without her aunt’s formerly-volatile temper. Blank aside, he found no evidence at all of the ever-simmering wrath that had once been so fundamental a part of his Lorna._

_This woman’s immediate worries were perfectly understandable: fear of her Gift, uncertainty about life in the DMA, and a deep, abiding terror of the Blank that was only kept at bay by Ratiri. His Lorna had not feared it — at least, not in this sense._

_Well. If Von Rached did nothing else this day, he could mitigate a great deal of that. He didn't dare banish it entirely — that would draw attention he didn't need — but she could feel some peace without outside aid._

_Did this count as altruism? Probably not, given his foremost motivation was making this easier for himself. It was a benefit to this Lorna, but not one given without self-serving motivation._

_Deeper he went, still utterly without substance. Even his Lorna would have an extremely difficult time sensing that anyone had been here at all, let alone ventured so far into her niece’s mind. Certainly this Lorna would have no awareness._

_The Blank...where was it? He dared not actively search, and yet this might take months if he remained wholly passive._

Tomorrow_, he thought. For now he would linger, and hope enlightenment struck. He still did not understand why he should care about this woman, so tangentially connected to the few he actually loved._

_~_

“Guys — guys, she did that Blank thingy. Oh, fuck.” A tiny bolt of lightning arced to a spindle, and Saoirse frowned. “But yeah, she totally did, right in a cafeteria.”

Both twins stared at her. For someone who wasn’t a telepath, Saoirse somehow managed to find out a fair number of things before they did. _“Our cousin?” _Jerry asked. _“Holy shit, I thought that was just a you and Mam thing. What did she do?”_

“Ruined the cafeteria — _damn _it.” Another bolt, larger this time.

Mairead took her cousin’s hands — still tiny, though a touch larger than Mairead’s. Telepathic Xanax didn't count as abusing her Gift, and Saoirse’s control was a lot better when she wasn’t...agitated. _“Where is she now?”_

“I think she was gonna go to your house, so Aunt Lorna could keep an eye on her. I probably won’t ever get to meet her because Da was such a fuckup when she was a kid, but you guys need to tell me what she’s like. Her and her mam.”

Mairead and Jerry exchanged a very brief glance. Saoirse had never seemed to mind the fact that she didn't have a mother, probably because she had their mam, but it was a little weird Uncle Pat never got with anyone else. 

What Saoirse didn't know — and never would, at least not from them — was that her own mam hadn't died, she’s run off. The twins weren’t supposed to know that, but there were a lot of things they weren’t supposed to know that they found out anyway. Sooner or later Saoirse would start asking questions, and hopefully Uncle Pat was ready for them.

_“We will,” _Jerry promised. _“Marty ought to be home in a few days, too.” _While Aunt Sharley no longer left Earth for any length of time — the eruption of Kilimanjaro had been a pretty big lesson in why that was a bad idea — Marty still went to visit the Other sometimes. She too was pretty skilled at finding out things adults would rather none of them discover.

“What about Aunt Sharley?” Saoirse asked. While their aunt had never yet interfered with any of the dumber things they’d got up to, the fact remained that she _knew_ — she couldn’t not know.

_“We’re not hurting anything or anyone,” _Mairead said. _“It’s not like we’re actually going to do anything with that info.” _Which was probably why their aunt had never stepped in, honestly. There was nothing wrong with gathering knowledge through legit — if sometimes dubious — means, so long as it went no further than that.

~ 

If Von Rached had possessed an actual body, he would have winced. Sharley had not factored into his plans at all, which was highly remiss of him. How on Earth was he to do anything at all, when she returned to the mountain? The full scope of her power was still unknown to him, but he was entirely certain she’d be able to sense his presence, however passive and tenuous it might be. Hell, she might well be aware even if he stuck to dream-interference.

Surely the Lady had some plan. If not, this was over before it truly began.

Though he knew he ought not to, he made his way back to the mountain — back to the edge of the Duncans’ garden, even though he could go no further. The woman — Grania — and her daughter sat in deck-chairs on the freshly-mowed lawn, soaking up the sun. Save for the Blank, they were both so _ordinary_; they were the sort of people he wouldn’t have looked twice at, if he’d even bothered looking in the first place.

His thoughts were derailed by the arrival of the elder Lorna — his Lorna, even if she’d never actually _been _his. She was so small, and yet so strong, in spite of...of everything. The Lady would not lie to him: if she said Lorna had recovered, then recover she had, and yet that did nothing to mitigate his self-loathing. 

Could things ever have been otherwise? It was a question he had asked and answered long ago, before his death, and the answer was a resounding ‘no.’ Even had she not been his prisoner — even had there been no Ratiri — Von Rached was well aware what a monster he’d been. He had not, at that point, been capable of actually loving anyone or anything — he’d been too self-absorbed and arrogant to understand why he should have tried.

He turned away. Knowledge that he could never have been other than he was had not bothered him — not until the days before his death. Now, though, he wondered why he had been born thus — born with something missing, as Lorna once told him. It was not news to him; he’d always known he was unlike other people in more ways than one.

It didn't matter now, but part of him suspected that it actually did, somehow. _Physician, heal thyself, _he thought sourly, but he wasn’t really a physician, was he? The Lady had said so outright. He never truly had been.

Well. Surely there was more he could accomplish today, in what time he had before the Return of the Sharley.

~

_Sigyn was clear-headed enough to be very worried._

_A fresh wave of patients had come in — victims of the snowstorm, mostly — and there was whispered talk of sending her elsewhere, to some places more ‘suited’ to her, whatever that was even supposed to mean._

_Whatever it was, she feared to go. In the hospital, she was safe; nobody was going to attempt to take advantage of her vulnerable state. She could not be certain any convalescent home would be at all safe — if they even intended to send her to one. They might well turn her over to a workhouse, if Germany had such things. With her leg and her bruised ribs, she’d be at the mercy of anyone she came across. Bad, bad things could — and often did — happen to women alone in the world, and the police weren’t likely to care what happened to some foreigner._

_On the fourth day, a solution seemingly presented itself. The problem was that it sounded too good to be true, which meant it probably was. _

_“You have yourself a benefactor.” The speaker was a visibly exhausted matron whose name Sigyn had never caught. Her tone was not entirely approving. “Herr von Rached has offered you a place in his home, where you can recover.”_

_Sigyn’s eyebrows shot skyward. “He has?” She couldn’t keep the unease from her voice._ “Why?”

_“You would have to ask him yourself,” the matron said. “He will come to speak to you when his classes have finished for the day.”_

_Herr von Rached seemed to be a pleasant young man, but Sigyn barely knew him. He was intelligent, well-spoken, and she had to appreciate his interest in automobiles, but for all she knew, he was H.H. Holmes reincarnated — and even if he wasn’t, moving into the home of an unmarried, unrelated man would likely tarnish what reputation she had. Yes, she was a foreigner whose German was middling at best, but nobody had ever accused her of being immoral. Her reputation was one of a very few things she had, and yet what other choice did she really have?_

_The matron eyed her closely. The woman’s eyes were a slightly watery blue, but sharp as razors. “This frightens you?”_

_“I...should it?” Sigyn asked helplessly. “What if he...wants paying?” She doubted she need be any more explicit — not with this woman._

_Something in the matron’s expression shifted. “That matters to you?” She sounded so surprised Sigyn was almost insulted._

_“Of course,” she said. “I am driver, mechanic, not...immoral woman. I do not know right word, but you know what I mean.”_

_“If you would like, a nurse may come with him when he speaks to you.” The matron’s tone had softened markedly; evidently, Sigyn’s concerns were a point in her favor._

_“I...yes, please.” What was she going to do, if her fears were justified? She couldn’t imagine enduring...that...yet she’d be at risk of it no matter where she went. She wasn’t merely a woman alone, she was a young woman, which made her all the more vulnerable. _

_Oh, how she wished she’d never come to this wretched country. While she had no family in Iceland, she was well-educated in her native tongue, and could easily obtain a job as a governess or even a secretary — but there was no way for her to get there so long as this war lasted._


	7. Chapter Seven

“Sharley won’t be an issue.”

Von Rached eyed the cat, who yawned. “How on Earth could that be true?”

“The Lady can shield you from her, so long as you don't do anything glaringly obvious.” The aggravating feline stretched, before flopping down onto the table again. “You’re on the right track, with Lorna the Younger, though you’re wrong about something else.”

“Of course I am.” Von Rached couldn’t be _too _annoyed, given how golden the morning was, but the cat seemed to exist to irritate him. “What is it this time?”

If the cat had possessed eyebrows, he was entirely certain one would have raised. The creature had no _face_, and yet it seemed, at times, to radiate smugness. “You,” it said. “What you are, what you were, and what you might have been. You found what you were missing, not long before you died.”

He fought a truly appalling urge to roll his eyes. “Your point?”

“You might have found it much, much earlier, if you hadn't panicked that terrible day in 1917.”

Von Rached glared at the creature, and took his dishes to the kitchen with rather more vim than was strictly necessary. Sigyn could not have given him that which he so sorely lacked — he would have wrecked it all sooner or later, even if he hadn't accidentally killed her. There would have come a time he couldn't hide what he truly was, and then things might have been much, much worse.

Lorna had been able to escape him, however hard it was, and however terrible a toll it took on her. For Sigyn, there would have been no escape, and he could not have hoped to understand why holding her against her will was in any way wrong. Perhaps it was a mercy he’d killed her.

~

When he reached the mind of the younger Lorna, he realized that he couldn’t linger — her aunt was already there, and he hastily fled before she could register his presence.

There was, however, the other girl, Lorna’s younger niece. The child had school that morning, which was a boon to him; it meant she was sitting more-or-less still and focused on one particular thing. Her small class (only about ten children, all roughly the same age) was out on the mountain, for what seemed to be a geology lesson.

_Little Saoirse’s mind was...actually interesting. No two Asperger’s patients were the same, and the way hers regarded and processed the world around her was rather novel. He didn't need to dig deep at all to realize that she didn't understand other people, and was more or less unbothered by that fact. _

_Her mental landscape was, naturally, the mountain, and Von Rached was glad he had more or less mapped the real place. He walked it carefully, touching only lightly on whatever memories caught his eye; it was the Blank he sought, but the Blank did not exist in a vacuum. That she and her elder sister had so seldom fallen victim to it suggested that there was very much a nurture component — neither had been abused as children, and both seemed to lack the rage that had simmered in Lorna when he met her. Wrath was not a natural state for either._

_Saoirse’s Blank wound up rather harder to find than her sister’s, for Saoirse’s childhood had been as happy a one as anyone could have in the post-Gift world. There had been no poverty, no parents screaming at one another, no tiny flats in seedy areas. She was too young to recall the council flat she and her father had shared, before they came to the mountain; all her memories were spent either in Lorna’s home, or the house her father had later built. Hers was a childhood of warmth and light, and even during the upheaval and privation of the War, she had always felt safe, trusting that the adults in her life would protect her even if (when) things utterly went to hell._

_It made Von Rached pause, his objective momentarily forgotten. It was true that he had rarely peered into the minds of children, but even the twins had not held faith in their parents in quite the same way. It was certainly unlike anything he himself had ever felt; the only things one had been able to count on with his mother were drunken rages, in which she looked ever more foolish. At least he hadn't let his contempt for her stupidity color his later interactions with women._

_Saoirse, however...it was little wonder her Blank was buried so deeply. It was easy enough to identify, once he’d actually found the damn thing — a small, hard, cold, utterly alien _thing _so at odds with the rest of her. Just what _was _this thing? He’d seen it, or something like it, before, but so very rarely, and never multiple individuals within the same family. It had confounded him then, but it would not continue to do so._

_Carefully, carefully, he circled it. Within her mind it had no real form; it was a tricky, shifting thing, like mist in the Arctic. Strangely, it seemed almost to...slumber. There actually was some sort of awareness to it, however primitive; while it might not be sapient, it seemed, in some way, to be sentient. _

Stranger_, he thought, and indeed this reminded him unpleasantly of it. The thing that lived within Sharley’s mind had been a fully-formed second consciousness, split off from her mind while still very much a part of her. Was this Blank some form of proto-Stranger? Some dark facet that struggled to become an autonomous being? And if so, to what purpose? The Stranger had tried to protect Sharley, but this Blank was a pure liability. It had done Lorna no favors at all in the Institute._

_Von Rached did not actually touch the thing — this would be easier when she slept — but for now he caged it, and watched it sleep._

Patrick. _The thought was an unwelcome one, especially because he still didn't know what counsel to give the wretched man, even in dreams. Von Rached himself lived daily with remorse and self-recrimination, so how was he to teach somebody else not to?_

You are a clever man, _he thought sourly. _You’ll figure something out.

~

Lorna was somewhat at a loss.

Unsurprisingly, her niece remembered nothing of the time she’d been blank; that seemed to be a constant for people afflicted with it. She didn't even remember having her arse grabbed, which was something of a mercy.

“Is there some way to just...turn it off?” the poor young woman asked. She held a mug of tea, though she wasn’t entirely sure how it had got there, and the sun was warm on her face. “The telepathy, if not the...Blank? I know nullifiers are a thing.”

“They are, but you’ve got to be near one,” Lorna said. “It doesn’t linger once you’re not. I can stop you if you really get going, but I actually want you to try and trip it again. I’ve got an idea.”

The younger Lorna stared at her, as did Grania. Even Charlese (who’d been ordered to go rest in the sun) eyed her somewhat askance. Charlese had never actually seen the Blank in action, but she’d heard more than enough stories.

“I’m sorry, you _what_?” Grania asked. “You saw her in hospital, and you want to make her do that again? Why?”

Lorna didn't sigh, but she came close. She couldn’t blame these two for being wary, but it still made her life more difficult. “I didn't have permission to go into her mind, then,” she said, as her eyes flicked to her niece. “I’d like it now, if you’d grant it.”

“You could’ve tried something then?” Grania probably wasn’t even aware of the trace of accusation in her tone, and Lorna let it slide. The poor woman had been under enough strain.

“I could’ve,” Lorna said, “but this is the thing, the very first thing I teach my telepaths: unless it’s a dire emergency, you never, ever do something in somebody’s mind unless you’ve got permission. Just about everybody who lives in the DMA’s signed a waiver for the hospital, but you hadn't done that yet, Lorna, and you weren’t about to drop dead or kill anyone else.”

Mother and daughter exchanged a glance, and Lorna realized, only belatedly, just how vehement she’d sounded. Oh well. Might as well get the point across now, and save trouble later.

“What is it you want to do?” her niece asked. “If I give you permission and then trigger the — the Blank?” Her green, green eyes were wary, but there was something like hope in there, too.

“I can control mine,” Lorna said. “And I can control Saoirse’s, and if nothing else, you'd know what it feels like to have the damn thing on a leash. I won’t lie — it’ll probably leave you with a hell’v a headache, but it won’t do you any harm.”

The young woman winced a little, but really, what did she have to lose? She already didn't want to face anybody at the DMA, and they probably wouldn’t let her back in unless they had some assurance she wasn’t going to utterly lose her shit like that again. “You won’t — you won’t go digging all through my brain, will you? All my memories and that?”

Jesus, this poor woman… “Not if you don't want me to. I’ll only do what it takes to deal with this thing, and I won’t let on anything else I find. Telepaths, we’re a bit like doctors — patient confidentiality is a thing.”

The younger Lorna drew a slow breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, do what you need to...where should we do this?”

“Out here’d be favorite,” her aunt said. “Charlese, could you be a love and turn the kettle on again? I think there’s still biscuits in the cupboard, and you and Grania might as well eat them before the kids Hoover them all.”

Charlese snorted, but did as she was asked. “C’mon,” she said. “They’ll be all right — let’s get some tea, and you can watch from the kitchen if you want. Won’t be much to see, though.”

Lorna waited until Grania had been led away. _All right, allanah, you don't really know me and I know you’ve got little enough reason to trust me, but I need you to try. You don't know what the Blank looks like from the outside, but I’ve got mine on a leash. It won’t hurt you._

Her niece drew another deep breath, and nodded. Jesus, it was like looking at a mirror of her younger self — Saoirse wasn’t much more than a child yet, so it wasn’t as jarring with her, but thanks to the eyes, this Lorna looked even more like her namesake than did Siobhan. Donovans aged slowly; at 48, Lorna the Elder could have passed for thirty-odd if not for her hair, which had gone all but entirely silver now. It meant the resemblance passed from remarkable to uncanny.

“I don't know how to — to make it happen,” the young woman said. “It just does it on its own, or I’d be able to stop it.”

“You can’t,” her aunt said gently, “but I can. I know there’s no point at all in telling you to try to relax, but if you could give it a go anyway, I’d appreciate it.”

Another nod, and at least she was trying, though it didn't amount to much. Lorna couldn’t blame her for being terrified of the Blank; God knew she herself had been, when she was at its mercy. Though she’d grown up so thoroughly surrounded by violence that it was almost second nature, there was something beyond unnerving about coming to splattered in someone else’s blood, with no idea how it had got there. She couldn't imagine what it was like for this poor woman, who in spite of Pat seemed to have had a relatively unremarkable childhood that almost certainly had never involved hitting someone in the face with a half-brick in a sock.

Lorna gave her a small dose of telepathic Xanax before she did anything else, and eased her mind into her niece’s. Even with permission, she didn't yet venture deeper; for now she settled her vision through Lorna the Younger’s eyes. It was so weird, having binocular vision — while she still often dreamed of seeing clearly with both eyes, she’d grown so used the vision the Memories had left her with that seeing through somebody else’s was jarring.

Jesus, did she really look so threatening to this young woman? Yeah, more Xanax was needed, while Lorna let her adjust to having someone else along for the ride in her head. It was entirely possible to fuck around in somebody’s mind with them being none the wiser, but Lorna had hated it when Von Rached did that, and figured it was only polite to let somebody know she was there.

_Just trust me. _Having seen the Blank from the outside (courtesy of Saoirse), she knew just how horrifying, how inhuman it really looked, and she hoped it wouldn’t make her niece did something silly, like panic. _This won’t be pretty, but I’ve done it before. It’s not my first rodeo, and I’ll not fuck it up._

Her own Blank was easy enough to summon. Gerald had once told her that she was something like a tiny Bruce Banner, with the Blank being her Hulk. She’d responded that she only wished she could turn into a giant green rage monster, because then she wouldn’t have to kick people in the shins to get them out of her way. The Blank could be controlled, but she couldn’t keep it from her eyes — when it stirred, it stirred, and brought with it an icy inhumanity that made just about anyone recoil. 

The younger Lorna’s eyes widened, and panic jagged through her before the elder soothed it. The Blank was there, but not ascendant; it alone did not occupy Lorna’s gaze, but like called to like. 

Lorna the Younger’s surge forward like a tsunami, but for once, it didn't take her over. Oh shit, this was absolutely _terrifying _for the poor woman — she was going to want a drink after this, once her head quit hurting — but there was nothing for it. She would know what it felt like, to have the Blank successfully caged before it could override her conscious mind.

_Shit shit what is this what is_

_It’s all right. This is your Blank. Focus, allanah, if you can. This thing is part’v you, but that doesn’t mean it has to rule you. Sooner or later, you’ll be able to do this on your own. If I can do it, so can you_.

Her words didn't seem to be a great deal of comfort, but that was no real surprise. Her niece had no frame of reference at all for what was going on in her head, and she certainly didn't have any control over it.

Carefully, carefully Lorna eased her into sleep, and with it the Blank. Though she had no way to be certain, she was convinced that the Blank had some sort of awareness — enough to know when it was beaten, at least.

Grania, pale, came tearing across the lawn — she still had a biscuit in her hand, though at least she’d left her tea. “Is she—?”

“Asleep,” Lorna said. “For now. I want to try this again sometime, when she’s ready. I know that might take a while, but I want her to keep feeling what it’s like to control the thing.”

The woman knelt beside her daughter, who snoozed, oblivious, on the velvety lawn. “How did you do it?” she asked. “How did you learn how to...to contain it?”

“Self-defense,” Lorna sighed. “I hadn't got much choice.” She didn't elaborate, and fortunately, Grania didn't press.

~

Von Rached returned to his flat that evening with at least a mild sense of accomplishment. Saoirse’s Blank was contained, Mairead continued to behave herself, and there had been a merciful lack of Sharley. Even the cat didn't manage to annoy him, though it had knocked everything off his bathroom counter.

“Not a word, creature,” he said. “I actually feel as though I can attempt to counsel Patrick, much good may it do any of us.”

The cat, sprawled across the back of his armchair, yawned, and stretched luxuriously.

Von Rached didn't actually roll his eyes, but he thought about it. Rather hard.

When he went to bed, he did so with a glass of whiskey — probably of finer quality than anything a Donovan was likely to have consumed, but still, it had come from Ireland. The silky taste of it followed him into slumber.

_As with Mairead, he did not deliberately seek Patrick’s mind — nor, at first, did he do anything once he’d found it. He simply observed, curious._

_Pat, it would seem, had unusually keen powers of recall. It had been twenty years since he last stood in this tiny, run-down flat, and yet he remembered small details, like the streaks of rust in the sink and the dented cupboard._

_Grania, a good deal younger and really rather lovely, stood white-faced and infuriated in the kitchen doorway. Pat had come home drunk, yet again, and barely acknowledged girlfriend or daughter as he made a beeline for the refrigerator, and the beer that supposedly waited for him. In the memory, he’d been furious that Grania had dumped all his beer; in the dream, he wished he could crawl into a hole and never have to face humanity again. His guilt was well-earned, but it did no one any favors._

_Would he sense it, if Von Rached did something rather more direct than he’d done in his daughter’s mind? The man was no telepath, after all. Von Rached could guise himself as some trusted figure...if the man even had one who was not direct family. Upon cursory assessment, it would seem he did not._

_Dammit._

_All right, a stranger, then. A Dublin accent was easy enough to ape, especially in thought, and he gently guided the man’s dream to Limerick, and the pub that had employed Pat before the fever. It was a calm place, and the outside tables were surrounded by colorful baskets of summer flowers._

_“There’s no point at all in that guilt.” He didn't let Pat _see _him, but it was a dream; that shouldn’t seem unduly odd. “Stop clinging to it like a bloody remora. Your Lorna’s fine, and Grania. They’re not sitting at your sister’s house wishing your head would explode. They’ve got rather bigger things on their minds.”_

_Pat all but fell onto a wrought-iron chair (attractive, but surely not comfortable) and stared into the middle distance. “Haven’t got any right to peace. Not with...everything.”_

_“Patrick, you were a drug addict and a drunk,” Von Rached said, and he was exasperated enough that his accent slipped quite a bit. “You did not murder anyone, nor were you any sort of rapist. Yes, what you did was bad enough in its own right, but it wasn’t _that_. You’ve acknowledged your mistakes and made no attempt to defend them.”_

_“You sound like my sisters,” the man grumbled._

_“Because your sisters, unlike you, understand that self-flagellation benefits nothing and no one. Think on this, Patrick: someday, Grania and your daughter may well wish to speak with you. What will you tell them? What will you do? Will you turn into a blubbering mess of remorse, and make things awkward for everyone involved?”_

_Ire flashed through Pat’s hazel eyes. “Who the fuck are _you_, to tell me anything? What d’you know about guilt and fuckups?” Had he been awake, he would have questioned this entire scenario, but dreams were dreams._

_“Someone who committed wrongs far worse than yours against one I love,” Von Rached said. “She never truly forgave me, and Grania and your daughter might never truly forgive you, but Patrick, this isn’t _about _you. This is about what would be best for those you wronged, and you wallowing in remorse, however well-earned, is not it. Now when you wake tomorrow, you will look yourself in the mirror, and you will tell yourself that this is about what they deserve, not you.” Mercifully, he’d managed to more or less cling to his feigned accent; Pat had heard his voice in real life, but surely he would not recognize it now._

_“I—” _

_“Patrick,” Von Rached said, “I am right, and you know it. Now dream of something pleasant, and dwell no longer.”_

_While he had little practice at actually influencing a dream, he did his best to call up a pleasant memory on the mountain, with a young Saoirse gleefully yelling, “Fuck!” as she chased a butterfly. Of course a Donovan would find that adorable._

_~_

_When Von Rached met with Sigyn, he knew he had been right to bring Frau Berger. He had expected Sigyn to be wary, but there was genuine fear in her mind when they arrived, and in honesty, he couldn't blame her. It was only natural she should wonder what he would want from her in exchange. Obviously the hospital did as well, if the presence of a nurse was any indication._

_“I am very curious about automobiles,” he said, before she had to ask. “I know very little of them, but I intend to purchase one. They intrigue me, and I suspect you know more of them than most still left in the city.”_

_As he’d hoped, some of the tension left her shoulders. “I do not know all names in German,” she said. “Some, but others I only know in Icelandic.” _

_“I am sure we will muddle through somehow,” he said. “Frau Berger, my housekeeper, will see to your needs.”_

_Sigyn’s pale green eyes tracked to the woman, and she relaxed a little more. Young men in general might be a little-known quantity to her, but she had no doubt at least had one teacher like Frau Berger when she was in school. It was impossible even for Von Rached to imagine her tolerating any less-than-respectable goings-on under any roof she shared._

_“I...thank you,” Sigyn said. “I appreciate it very much. I will teach what I am able.”_

_That she capitulated without his interference was, oddly, a relief. “Very well. There is a taxi waiting.” _

_Her eyes widened; she hadn't anticipated leaving right now. She visibly rallied almost immediately, however, and did her best to help Frau Berger organize what few things she had._

_~_

_The taxi ride was...awkward. Considering Sigyn knew Von Rached very little, and Frau Berger not at all, it was really no wonder._

_She watched the busy streets through the window, and Von Rached wondered when she had last spent any appreciable time in a proper city. Berlin was in many ways a shadow of her normal self, and yet much of her beauty remained._

_His voice broke through her reverie. “Tell me of yourself, Frauline. I do not even know your proper name.”_

_“Sigyn Munninsdóttir, Mein Herr,” she said. “I came here from Iceland with my father. He taught at university, but he died right when war started, and I am not able to be leaving.” _

_“You have been here three years?” He did his best to keep any imperiousness from his tone, though it was not easy. His friends constantly shook their heads at his bluntness, but it was difficult to break._

_“Yes,” she said, and sighed. “I was fifteen. Now I am just eighteen. I had no German when I came here. I still have little.”_

_Von Rached arched an eyebrow. “That will change, with tutoring. I am serious, Frauline, when I say I wish to know about automobiles. They are terra incognita to me — and more importantly, to my friends. Perhaps it is shallow of me, but I do enjoy learning things before they do.” It was not a lie, yet neither was it the full truth. Perhaps she would learn that with time, or perhaps not. They would see._

_His words drew a fleeting (but genuine) smile. “Not terra,” she said. “Automobiles are all work of people.” By now much of her unease had drained, but a measure of it yet lingered._

_“I do not fault your hesitation, Frauline,” he said. “I realize this is most irregular, but I give you my word I mean you no harm. And if that is not enough, we have the inimitable Frau Berger, as well as Frau Meyer, my cook. There is also a housemaid called Gerda. You will dwell in a proper household.” _

_She flushed with embarrassment, and looked away. “You are very kind, and I do not want to seem ungrateful…”_

_“But I am a man, and I do not doubt you have met men of low character,” he said. “You would be a fool to blindly trust me, and a fool you are not. The trust of any intelligent person must be earned.”_

_Sigyn’s eyes tracked to Frau Berger, who sat proper and silent. Within her mind, Von Rached caught an image of a woman who bore something of a resemblance to the housekeeper — a woman who had kept house for she and her father._

_He wondered if she had any idea she might well possess a supernatural ability, though he doubted it. He couldn’t dig deep enough to find out without risking harm to her. The strength of his own gift was formidable, but he still lacked true precision._

_Abruptly, he realized he was staring, and looked away. Von Rached had been told, time and again, that his gaze was somewhat unnerving if he looked too long upon a person or object. As much as it annoyed him, even he understood the value of, if not comfort, at least a lack of undue curiosity._

_~_

_When they reached his home, he left the details to Frau Berger. She could show Sigyn the bathing facilities (thoroughly modern plumbing) and see to the woman’s other needs. It would be up to him to bring her up the stairs, but the housekeeper could settle her. A good night’s rest in a proper bed would no doubt aid Sigyn immensely, in mind as well as body._

_In the meantime, he had to decide what to actually _do _with her._

_His time was largely eaten by classes, and he doubted Sigyn would enjoy sitting idle the entire time. She’d be off that leg for some weeks yet, which meant no automobiles or driving...oh. Yes, that might work. Tomorrow he would acquire blueprints for several automobiles, and she could label and explain them as she saw fit. It would serve a dual purpose of edifying him and, hopefully, laying any of her lingering fears to rest. Tedious and irritating though they were, Von Rached could not fault her for them._

_~_

Things seemed to be going tolerably well the next day — a look at Patrick’s waking mind told Von Rached the man had not utterly discounted his words, and the children were all ranged around the fire pit in his backyard. Mornings were still chilly, which meant they were all swathed in coats and blankets, with mugs of what was possibly hot chocolate on the ground beside them.

In her gloved hands, Saoirse had an ancient, battered copy of _The Hobbit_, which she was attempting to read aloud. Emphasis on ‘attempting’; the poor girl was one of the sort who stumbled over every other word when she read anything out loud, but none of the other children seemed to mind at all. Mairead sat beside her, and appeared to be helping her pronounce certain words.

Von Rached knew he shouldn’t linger anywhere near his daughter, but he committed the sight to memory before he moved away through the forest. Though he hadn't dared touch her mind, he sensed nothing from her save contentment. Whatever darkness she possessed lurked deeply indeed.

He ought to check on Grania and the younger Lorna, if either of them were apart from Lorna the Elder. Once again, he genuinely tried to fathom why he should actually care about either of them, and once again, he came up short. Even yet, he couldn’t fathom why intent mattered.

_I _intended _to gain useful information from my experiments, _he thought, even as he left the yard. _I did exactly that, but that makes my methods no less horrific than those of a common sadist. That I inflicted pain in the name of discovery rather than personal pleasure mitigates none of it. _The inverse, then, had to be true — did it not?

As he made his way through the sun-dappled forest, he realized, for the first time, that he was still not actually sorry for a great many of the things he’d done. No, he should not have done them, but he didn't lose any sleep over it, and doubted he ever would.

The thought actually made Von Rached pause. Though he’d resisted it nearly to the last, he’d changed and grown in the years between the Institute and his death, but he could not imagine ever caring a whit what a monster he’d once been.

He’d been born with something missing. Perhaps a few things always would be.

~

Saoirse set the book aside, and sighed. She’d felt really fucking weird since yesterday afternoon — weird in a way that was totally new, and not exactly pleasant. It was not something she could have articulated even to herself, but it was just so..._alien_. Not necessarily wrong, but also not necessarily right. 

“Guys, something’s...itchy?” she said. “Itchy in my brain. I think maybe I need to go see your mam.” ‘Itchy’ wasn’t really the right word, but she couldn't come up with a better one. 

Two sets of pale eyes zeroed in on her with an intensity that even she found a little creepy. She really didn't wonder why her cousins freaked some people right the fuck out — especially Mairead. Her expression could get awfully weird, in that sometimes she didn't have one at all; she might as well have been a statue.

_“Saoirse, can I take a look?” _Mairead asked. _“Not a _look _look, but I want to see if somebody’s been in your brain.”_

Saoirse blinked, because okay, she hadn't seen that one coming. “Why?” she asked. “Why d’you think someone might’ve been in my brain?”

Her cousin’s reply made her skin crawl. _“Because I’m pretty sure someone’s been in mine.”_


	8. Chapter Eight

It wasn’t often that Mairead pulled a truly monumental fuckup — the few really terrible mistakes she’d made had usually involved some sort of gadgetry gone awry — so this one took her entirely by surprise.

With Saoirse’s consent, she went into her cousin’s mind just far enough to cast about for traces of another person. It was one of the few things she and Jerry had been taught, mainly because with so damn many telepaths in the world now, it was a useful skill.

She never actually got the chance to find out one way or the other, however, because after about thirty seconds, something in Saoirse’s brain went _snap. _Mairead didn't know what it was right off, but the ‘what’ was of secondary importance — the actual, truly pressing thing was the fact that Mairead was, incredibly, actually trapped.

It was only for a moment, but even that moment was far too long. Panic surged through her, crashing like a tsunami into whatever the hell had snapped inside her cousin’s head. It was rage the like of which Mairead never would have thought possible, so all-consuming that there wasn’t a single fucking trace of _Saoirse_ left.

It was that panic that jerked Mairead back to herself, and sent her flailing backward. Jerry caught her before she could stumble into the fire-pit, but she barely noticed, because she was damn near hypnotized by Saoirse’s eyes. Flat, blank — oh shit. 

Neither twin had ever actually seen the Blank, but they knew what it was. Nothing Mam or Uncle Pat had said had been preparation enough, however: in that moment, whatever stared at them out of Saoirse’s green, green eyes was so inhuman that it actually made Mairead’s skin crawl. Christ, _Mam _had once had this? Just what —

The thought had no chance to finish itself, because now there was lightning in Saoirse’s, flaring and ebbing in every visible vein beneath her skin. It arced through her hair, around her fingers, brilliant and white-hot, and oh good bloody Jesus, Mairead was so beyond unprepared to deal with this.

It shot outward, upward, veins of silver that earthed themselves in whatever they could find — trees, the house, even the fire pit. The heat was absolutely searing, and now Mairead really did stumble over the fire pit, shoving Jerry away as she went. Panic again clawed at her mind, roiling in her chest as the copper scent of electricity overtook the aroma of smoke and clean, damp earth. What was she supposed to _do_? For the first time in a very long time, she found herself trapped in the agony of indecision, helpless before the thing in Saoirse’s eyes.

In the next instant, Marty took the problem away from her. It was easy to forget that the girl was technically a quarter deity, technically even older than their parents, but there was nothing at all childlike in her expression now. For that moment, eternal as it felt, she seemed as ancient as her creepy, creepy grandda.

One tiny, pallid, scarred hand reached out, totally heedless of the silver that lit up her long-disused veins when she touched Saoirse’s forehead. “No,” she said, and even her voice was all wrong — softer, but deeper. _Adult. _“Not now, Saoirse.”

Marty tried to catch Saoirse as she fell, but the older girl, Donovan though she was, was a fair bit bigger. When she collapsed, whatever cast over Marty was broken; she was nearly knocked on her arse.

Mairead, heart still lodged somewhere in her throat, stumbled forward on auto-pilot, grabbing her cousin’s arm. It was no good, though; Saoirse was total dead weight, and it just brought her and Marty down. The impact nearly drove the breath from her, which was almost a relief; it overrode the dread that churned in her gut like a rave of butterflies on acid. It wasn’t often that she feared anything at all, but just now she was utterly fucking terrified — not of Saoirse, but for her.

“Mairead.” Marty squirmed her way out from under the unconscious girl, and carefully laid her head on the ground. “Mairead, it’ll be okay. Call your mama and your uncle. Saoirse’ll stay asleep for a while yet.”

Jerry, pale and trembling, stared at her. “How did you do that?”

Marty’s strange, milky, mismatched eyes found his, and there was still something so jarringly old in them. “I can do a lotta things,” she said. “Doesn’t mean I want to do them, unless I have to. Go call your mama, Mairead. Saoirse’s not going anywhere.”

Off Mairead went, and wished Uncle Pat hadn't left for work so early. Mam was going to be so utterly far from thrilled.

~

Lorna should have realized her morning was going far too well. Both niece and...not sister-in-law, but something akin to it, had peaceably eaten a very fine breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon, courtesy of Lorna herself. Generally Ratiri and Charlese hesitated to let her anywhere near the kitchen, but she wasn’t entirely an awful cook — she could handle simple things just fine, thanks so much, and she had plenty of practice with breakfast.

She’d had no concrete plans for the pair, because she’d thought it might be best to let them simply settle in, and adjust to their new surroundings. God knew they were night and day from Dublin, and she was pretty sure neither woman had ever done much hiking. The forest was a new thing, and they ought to learn to appreciate it in their own time.

Her own serenity was totally shattered when she scrambled to answer the phone, and heard the tremor in her daughter’s voice.

“Mam, Saoirse, she did that thing, that Blank thing,” the girl said. “I think it might be my fault, but only because there was already something there to have happen. Marty made her sleep, but Mam, I don't know what to do. Neither does Jerry.”

Lorna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Slow down, allanah,” she said. “Tell me exactly what happened, and I’ll come get the lot’v you.”

The story her daughter dropped on her was even worse than she’d expected, though she ought to have known Saoirse’s Gift would go haywire with the Blank. At least they’d had a few days of soggy weather that kept the forest from igniting.

“You just hang on,” she said, as soothingly as she could. “I’ll take the Jeep and I’ll come get you. So long as Saoirse stays asleep, you’re all safe enough, and so is she.” Lorna hadn't known Marty could even do something like that, but it too really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Even yet, she wasn’t fully certain of everything Sharley could do.”

Christ, what a clusterfuck...it was just as well Lorna the Younger and her mam were so calm, but Lorna was going to hit them both with a dose of telepathic Xanax eventually. The pair of them knew that Saoirse was a thing that existed, but nothing more than that, and it was _supposed _to have stayed that way for the foreseeable future.

She made her way back out into the cool, dew-scented morning, and brushed both their minds before she was willing to speak.

“So,” she said, and at least managed to keep undue awkwardness from her tone, “I don't know how much you heard’v that, but my other niece tripped into the blank herself, somehow. I know this might wind up uncomfortable, but I’ve got to bring her here. I can take her to see Pat once he’s off work, so you don't have to deal with him, but she can’t be left to wake up on her own.”

Predictably, neither woman was at all happy, though it was some time before one of them said a thing. “Don't worry about us,” Grania said at last. “My Lorna and I are both adults. There’s no reason for this to get weird — or at least, there’s no reason apart from that bloody blank.”

“What’s she like?” Lorna the Younger asked. “You said she was an aspie, right?”

“She is,” her aunt sighed, “so try not to mind her if her verbal filter’s totally lacking at first, and for Christ’s sake don't slag Pat. I know he did you both very wrong, but he’s been a good da to that kid. She knows he did some shit things in his youth, but she doesn’t really understand it.”

“I think we can manage that,” the young woman said, and Lorna was not surprised by the very faint trace of envy in her voice. She couldn’t fault the girl, either.

“You’ve got no idea how much appreciate that,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Off she went, gathering boots and a proper coat as she went — though it was unlikely anyone would see her, using her dressing-gown as outerwear was a little much. She’d get the kids back home, and then she wanted to know, oh so much, why her daughter would have done such a thing. It wasn’t technically against the DMA’s established rules of telepathy, but it skirted the edge of acceptable.

_It’s not like she could’ve possibly seen _that_ coming, _Lorna thought grimly. Driving with only one good eye was not terribly fun, but she was so used to it by now that she had too much time to think. They’d need to have a talk, once opportunity presented itself. If Mairead thought there had been someone anywhere in her mind, she was probably right; the kid was unfortunately perceptive. The fact that she’d not said anything about it was less than reassuring, but that had to wait.

Unsurprisingly, she saw no one on the short drive to her brother’s house. When she reached it, she found the kids had properly doused the fire, and Saoirse was snoozing in a lawn chair. That it took Marty to knock her out...the twins knew how to do that, but must have choked. Not that Lorna could really blame them. Damp or no damp, it was an actual bloody miracle that the forest hadn't caught fire.

_“Mam, I didn't go far into her head.” _Poor Mairead was pale and trembling.

“I know, allanah,” Lorna said gently, and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Just taking a little peek should’ve been fine. I don't know why it wasn’t, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

_“You’re not mad at me?”_

Lorna fought a sigh, because perhaps she had gone a bit overboard when it came to her rules about telepathy. “No, I’m not. Allanah, you weren’t actually doing anything wrong, and I trust you not to go any further. I want to see just what happened once we’ve got Saoirse back at the house.”

Her daughter only nodded, but at least seemed somewhat less tense. They got the sleeping lump of Saoirse buckled in the front seat, and Lorna wondered just what Marty had done to knock the kid out. The only way she knew of was via telepathy, which Marty, whatever other abilities she might possess, did not have.

_Later. _Short though the drive was, her children’s distress made it seem longer. Once they’d reached the house, she sent them to the kitchen for biscuits and tea (yes, it was a bit early for biscuits, but fuck it. They were traumatized.)

Saoirse’s old room was currently occupied, but Pat’s was not, so in the girl went. Marty followed, silent and solemn, and sat beside her on the bed.

“I’m thinking you can keep her out, can’t you?” Lorna asked.

Marty nodded. “She won’t wake up until I let her.”

That was...honestly rather disturbing, but there was still no time for it. Saoirse’s slumber was really much more like a coma to Lorna’s eyes.

“Good, because I need a good look at her mind.” Mairead needed time to absorb some tea and biscuits before Lorna put her through anything else. It took quite a lot to rattle her children, but the Blank would have been a hell of a thing to witness in someone they love.

_She eased her gentle way into Saoirse’s sleeping mind — good bloody Jesus, her coma comparison wasn’t that far off. Fortunately, the girl had given her permission to poke around in there, but she approached carefully anyway. _

_Unsurprisingly, there were traces of Mairead’s presence, fresh along Saoirse’s forebrain; what was conspicuously lacking was any trace of what such a benign visit could have triggered. Mairead had barely brushed the surface, so what in the shit…?_

_Deeper Lorna went, slow and patient. There was no damage, not even the slight mental scarring that came with the invasion of even a skilled, moderately experienced telepath. There was absolutely nothing — no mark whatsoever of any outside presence. Even Lorna herself couldn’t have managed that, and she suspected telepathy had nothing to do with whatever had flipped the switch on Saoirse’s Blank. _

_It was a decent hypothesis, but it shattered once Lorna found the Blank itself. Okay seriously, what in the _shit_ was this? And how in the name of any bloody deity that might be listening had it got there?_

_The Blank was, of course, totally quiescent, but someone, somehow, at god only knew what point, had put a...a cage around it. A fence. No bloody wonder she’d gone off — trying to contain the Blank was an absolutely horrible idea, which Lorna herself had found out the hard way. A hole had been blown right through that strange barrier, which was, incredibly, repairing itself._

_What._

_Well, whatever it was, and however it had got there, it had to go. It was so deceptively simple that she was stunned to find it didn't budge. A somewhat greater amount of pressure, though still very gentle, did very little to shift it — and still, the ragged edges sought to reconnect._

_A leaden ball of ice dropped into Lorna’s stomach, and she disengaged as carefully as she had arrived._

She stared down at the girl, who looked so serene. That was just...straight-up impossible, and yet there it was. None of the mountain’s telepaths could have done such a thing, and there were none so strong and skilled in the whole of the DMA, either. They had some quite _powerful _telepaths, sure, but this took power and a level of precision that only came with use and practice. Lorna would have known if there was any such person, but she had to check the DMA registry anyway.

I_ couldn’t do that. _She’d successfully built a cage around Saoirse’s Blank once, which the thing had also broken in very short order, but she hadn't constructed hers to be self-repairing. She hadn't thought there would be any need. And while she could whisper through another mind with such dexterity that even other telepaths wouldn’t have been able to spot it, she should have. 

_Sharley. _Once the woman actually got home, she could suss out whoever had pulled this off. Meanwhile, Lorna needed a good long talk with her daughter.

~

Mairead’s equanimity was well on its way to restoration, helped along by chocolate-chip biscuits. Even now, chocolate remained something of a luxury, but Katje and Geezer had Ways that Lorna wasn’t about to question.

Naturally, both twins had taken up residence atop the freezer, but Mairead came down when bidden. Lorna took her out for a walk in the forest, so that she might speak in her own time, with no chance of anyone to disrupt her.

“Why d’you think someone was in your head, allanah?” Lorna asked. 

Mairead took a while to answer, and Lorna let her mull. _“It’s just...a feeling,” _she said at last, and kicked at a loose clump of earth beside the trail. _“I was dreaming, and it felt like somebody else was there, but only for a moment. I asked who it was, and then they were gone. I can’t be _sure _anyone was there in the first place, but you know how sometimes you can feel certain about something, even without hard evidence?”_

Lorna did indeed know, and it troubled her immensely. Her daughter might be young, but she was incredibly perceptive. “Did it feel good or bad?” she asked. “Like something that might be pleasant, or something uncomfortable?”

_“Neither, really. Whoever it was, they weren’t around long enough for me to know one way or the other. Could it have something to do with the Lady?”_

“Maybe.” Lorna didn't lie to her children, but that wasn’t really a lie. It could well be the case, and she hoped to high hell that it was, though she’d never heard of the Lady scarpering when someone sensed her. Perhaps it was some kind of unfathomable test. “We’ll ask your aunt when she gets home, but until then, I want you to stay with your da and I. I’ll see if I can’t get Gavin down here to take a shift, so we can watch your dreams.” At her age, all-nighters were just no longer an option. Gavin was no spring chicken himself, but she was reasonably sure it would work if they took it in turns.

_“You’re really not mad at me for peeking at Saoirse’s mind?” _It wasn’t often anymore that either of her children were so anxious, but with something like this, it was almost better than the alternative.

“I’m really not, allanah. I know you wouldn’t’ve done anything you shouldn’t, and I can’t fault you not wanting to call me for something that should’ve been minor.” 

She couldn’t help a sigh. “You’re not a child anymore, even if you’ve got a ways to go yet before you’re an adult. It’s about time I taught you that sort’v thing.”

Christ, when did her children grow up so much? It seemed they’d been five years old only yesterday, running about like a pair of hummingbirds. She’d missed too much time with them during the War, and unfair though it was, she’d never quite forgiven Von Rached for it — or Aelis, come to that. Oh, she understood why they’d done it, but that didn't mean she had to like it, and she wasn’t going to. Siobhan had told her children grew up all too fast, and it seemed she was totally right.

_“Mam, why are you sad?” _Mairead’s pale eyes stared up at her with a wholly different sort of anxiety.

“I’m not sad, really,” Lorna said. “I just feel old sometimes, looking at you and your brother. You’re so much older, and your da thinks you’re going to get much, much bigger in a year or two.” 

How Ratiri could think that, Lorna had no idea, but he was rarely wrong about anything medical. If he was right, it was an absolute bloody mercy that he himself was a total giant, or it would look rather...well, odd. While she knew of very few people who wondered if there wasn’t more than one reason she’d hated Von Rached so, it was a few too many; the potential reminders were best kept as limited as possible.

Von Rached. The thought that struck her was nearly enough to make her halt, but somehow she managed to keep on. Did he have any other descendents? Katje probably wasn’t the first woman he’d had it off with, and it wasn’t like birth control was all that reliable for much of the twentieth century. While it was very unlikely he’d fathered any other kids, it wasn’t totally impossible, and any descendents of his could well be as powerful as the twins. It would, unfortunately, explain why anyone at all was able to infiltrate her daughter’s dreams — though why any would want to do that was beyond Lorna’s understanding.

The sooner Sharley got home, the better, because they had very, very little hope of finding any potential person without her.

~

_This, Sigyn thought, might not be so bad. After a bath (somewhat awkward, thanks to the cast), she’d donned the nightdress loaned to her by Frau Berger, and slept for a solid ten hours. _

_Unfortunately, when she woke, she needed the toilet rather badly, and it was downstairs. She had crutches, but she had never yet attempted to use them on a flight of stairs, and didn't particularly want to try. Dull pain radiated up her leg and through her side, and her throat was unpleasantly dry._

_In the end, she pulled on the quilted dressing gown (also Frau Berger’s, at once too large and too short) and crutched her way to the stairs, which she then sat on and essentially walked down with her hands. It very likely looked ridiculous, but better ridiculous than a broken neck._

_“Child, what are you doing — why didn't you ring the bell?” The housekeeper bustled down the hallway in a swish of starched petticoats, and drew Sigyn to her feet with surprising strength. _

_“Bell?” Sigyn repeated. “I didn't know there is one. I am not…” She and her pappa had had a housekeeper-cook, but they had never used a _bell _to summon her or anyone else. That was something strange rich people did. “I need bathroom.” _

_“Of course you do. Come along — we’ll get you taken care of, and then there’s some breakfast keeping warm in the oven. Herr von Rached said you would likely sleep late, after the ordeal you’ve had.” _

_The housekeeper’s accent was heavy, and not entirely intelligible, but her tone was calming. Brisk, efficient, but also somewhat maternal, and totally unfazed by the oddity of the situation, which was rather more than Sigyn herself could say._

_“I am sorry I sleep late,” Sigyn said, as she crutched her way along. “I don't normally.” She had a vague wish to not appear lazy in front of this woman, who very likely spent very few idle minutes._

_“Heavens, don't apologize. Herr von Rached told us what you’ve been doing for the boys at the Front — you’ve earned some rest.” Bless the woman, she helped Sigyn to the toilet and then courteously turned away while actual business was dealt with. _

_“You stay right here. Some clothes were brought for you this morning.” With that rather mystifying statement, Sigyn was alone long enough to wash her hands and her face, and scrub her teeth. Clothes? For her? She had only arrived here last night...hadn't she?_

_Back Frau Berger came, with several garments folded over her arm. “I laundered all your underthings, and these are for you. The messenger said more will come later, when the tailor has more prepared.”_

_“Have I been asleep more than one day?” Sigyn asked. Tailors did not just make things overnight. Pappa had given their seamstress a month to outfit them for their life in Germany._

_The housekeeper took in her expression, and sighed. “One thing you will learn,” she said, “is that money opens many doors, and Herr von Rached is generous. I will take your proper measurements after you eat — the tailor used your working clothes for sizing, so these ought to fit more or less.”_

_“I wish I knew how to thank him,” Sigyn said, a little helplessly. _

_“If I have learned one thing about him,” Frau Berger said, even as she helped Sigyn out of the dressing-gown, “it is that he dislikes being thanked. He wishes to learn from you, and he intends to see that you are well-cared-for while you teach.”_

_That she seemed to trust her employer so implicitly had to be a good sign. Also welcome was the house dress, that did indeed fit rather well — simple, soft green cotton, that she could easily get into and out of herself — and a heavy, wide-sleeved black dressing gown of what felt like _cashmere._ That garment, she suspected, had been in the process of construction for someone else, because the green embroidery on the cuffs had not been done overnight. The length and lack of other frippery suggested there was a man who would now have to wait longer for his order._

_Yes, this might just be fine after all._

~

_When Von Rached returned to his home after classes finally let out for the day, he was pleased to find Sigyn awake and in the sitting-room — and even more pleased that Frau Berger was attempting to help her with a book of German history. While he had not dug deeply into his housekeeper’s mind, it did not surprise him to find that she had been a governess in her youth. He had given all the servants the run of the library, so long as they took care with the books and put them away properly, but he hadn’t actually expected any of them to take advantage of it._

_She rose when he entered the room, and curtsied a little; Sigyn tried to rise, only to be gently but firmly shoved back onto her seat by one of the housekeeper’s plump, capable hands. “Welcome home, Mein Herr. Supper will be ready very soon.”_

_He found the curtseying oddly bothersome, if he was honest. His mother had never managed to retain any servants for very long, but the bowing and scraping grated. It seemed a waste of time and energy, and yet he was certain that if he told her to dispense with it, he would only confuse and upset her. _

_“Frau Meyer need not hurry,” he said. “I’ll be a moment upstairs anyway. Are you enjoying your book, Frauline?”_

_Sigyn’s brow wrinkled, just a little. “Honest answer is, I do not know yet. There are very many words I have never seen before.”_

_Von Rached wondered what on Earth her father had been thinking, dragging her to a country with a language of which she knew nothing. No, the man likely hadn't planned on dying here, but surely it should have been a consideration. “I asked the university librarian to locate a German-Icelandic dictionary, if such a thing is to be found. Meantime, I have things for your perusal — I will show them to you after supper, but for now I must deal with these clothes.” His coat was dusted with rapidly-melting snow, and he would be more than happy to remove his boots._

_“If you would give me your coat, Mein Herr, I will put it near the radiator to dry,” Frau Berger said. He had to give her credit — her expression betrayed not a whit of the annoyance she felt at the amount of snow he’d tracked inside._

_“It will keep, for now,” he said. “I’ll leave it on the coathook, and you can deal with it later. It will hardly suffer for being damp an extra hour. Keep on with Frauline Munninsdóttir.” Since Sigyn was highly unlikely to be aware of the concept of changing clothes for dinner, he wouldn’t bother informing her. It was a pointless custom that he had only found aggravating; the food hardly cared what you wore. _

~

Sharley really was beginning to think she should just never leave the Donovans alone. Oh, most of the time they were fine, but when they weren’t, they _really _weren't.

She’d been reasonably sure that Grania and the younger Lorna would come to the DMA when they did, but in no potentiality had she seen the young woman utterly lose her shit, nor had there been any indication Saoirse would shortly follow suit.

Since it was mid morning when she returned, both were awake, though it was immediately obvious they hadn't yet met — Saoirse was in Mairead’s room with the twins, while the younger Lorna sat beneath the rose arbor, tea in hand.

_“Okay, now it’s just downright fucking creepy,” _Kurt muttered. _“It’s the eyes. That’s why it’s so much worse.”_

He wasn’t exactly wrong, not that Sharley was about to say so. By now she was used to just how strong a resemblance the Donovans shared, but the green-eyed ones were...something else. Somebody probably knew just what it was about the Donovan DNA that so thoroughly obliterated any characteristics from the non-Donovan parent, but it wasn’t her.

“Yeah, so, they’re all like that,” she said. Her companion, if she could even call him that, had turned up in Seattle that morning — a giant ginger of a man, with an equally ginger beard and blue eyes with lightning in their depths. That, she was sure, was not something any human would be able to spot, but it wouldn’t take a genius to work out who he was in fairly short order — even without the hammer, which he’d fortunately stashed somewhere. With a grin and a twinkle in his eye, he’d given his name as Taranis, a name that would be so transparent to an Irish person that she wondered why he bothered. Still, if he felt like pretending, she was hardly going to spoil his fun. 

_“Your...student...is inside,” _Sinsemilla added.

Oh, explaining this to Pat was going to be so very fun, except not. So much had been dropped on the poor man already, and this might well prove too much. The problem was that there was really nothing else to be done — somebody had to keep a handle on Saoirse’s Gift until something got rid of the Blank. 

And Blank or no Blank, she’d already outmatched her teacher in raw power that she could still have a tough time controlling on the best of days. Sharley didn't know if that had been Jary’s doing; some families tended to produce stronger individuals than others, and the Donovans were indisputably one of them.

Saoirse, however, was the first who needed to be trained by an actual deity.


	9. Chapter Nine

After everything Lorna had gone through, she liked to think she was fairly decent at rolling with things, but this was a new one. It took her all of five seconds to recognize ‘Taranis’ — she’d only seen him very briefly during the battle in the Arctic, but he was not the sort of person one forgot.

_Sharley, what? Why…? _

_Why’s he here, or why’s he not using his legit name? _Sharley asked. _He’s here for Saoirse. Why he’s half-ass trying to pretend he’s not...him...I don't know, but I guess we oughtta run with it for now._

“D’you want some tea?” Lorna asked, her gaze flickering from one to the other. She was Irish; tea had to be offered, no matter what the situation. Christ, would he even know what tea was? How long had he been...awake? She knew that not all the old gods had gone back to sleep after the battle, though they rarely actually made themselves known. At least ‘Taranis’ looked human, if massive, though the fact that he was a ginger with nary a freckle was oddly unsettling. Then again, who knew what was going on under that beard; he could hide a cheeseburger in it and nobody would know.

“Tea would be welcome, Lady Lorna,” he said. His accent was rather odd — quite heavy, for one thing, and just different enough from any Scandinavian accent she’d ever heard to be jarring.

“Oh good Jesus, not with the lady stuff,” she said. “Just Lorna — she’s just Lorna, too, and Grania’s her mam.”

Lorna the Younger was visibly clueless, but her mother stared wide-eyed. Well, if nothing else, this was certainly distracting.

Though the house had been built with Ratiri’s height in mind, this Taranis somehow seemed to take up half the kitchen. Ratiri was broad-shouldered, but Taranis seemed more like a mobile wall of person. God. Whatever. Just..._what?_

The peculiar thing, she realized, even as she fetched mugs on auto-pilot, was the sheer lack of power he radiated. His presence should have screamed across her own magic — the Lady’s certainly did, and Amadai’s. Could he somehow mute it, like the deities of the Other?

_Of course he can, _she thought. _How else would he be able to hide what he is?_

Four children came skidding into the kitchen on stocking feet. The twins managed to halt (they could thank Von Rached for their grace and reflexes, if nothing else), but Saoirse slammed right into the refrigerator, with Marty just behind.

“Holy shitballs.” All four of them stared, but Saoirse seem to speak for the group as a whole. She was still semi-blitzed on telepathic Xanax, or her reaction might have been more extreme. “Mairead said Sinsemilla said there was company, but…”

Lorna really couldn’t blame her for faltering. This giant of a man had the hair and beard of a Viking, but his clothing was incongruously modern: jeans, boots, and red-and-black flannel shirt. They were clothes that wouldn’t have looked at all out of place on the mountain, had they been worn by, well, somebody who wasn’t two meters tall and built like an actual brick house. 

_Tea, _she thought. That was all that mattered short-term. She switched the kettle on, and fetched little ceramic jars Katje had given them (red lacquer, because of course they were.)

“He’s here to teach you,” Sharley said. “So you don't zap the shit outta anyone or anything unless you actually want to.”

“You mean, like on the ice?” The girl’s big green eyes were still zeroed in on Taranis. “Like when I was on the ship?”

He laughed, and it was such a hearty, booming laugh that Lorna was surprised none of the dishes rattled. “Exactly that. You’ve been given a mighty gift, little Saoirse, but with it comes a weight of responsibility you must learn to bear.”

Normally, Saoirse would have glowered at anyone who called her ‘little’, but this man had a solid six inches even on Sharley. Everybody was probably little to him. “That...sounds kinda sucky, actually,” she ventured. “Weight, and all.”

“It is not wholly a burden,” he said, and knelt so that he was closer to her eye level. She still seemed the size of a doll by comparison. “There is much you do not yet know, for there have been none to teach you. There is so much more to your Gift than lightning, little Saoirse.”

Somehow, her eyes widened even further; they looked perilously close to actually falling out of her head. “My da’s gonna shit a brick.”

~

_The next few days were something of a learning experience. Von Rached was unused to a housemate who was not a servant or someone he hated, like his mother, but Sigyn was hardly a trial to live with. The second evening, he brought her the assorted automotive schematics he’d collected, and she spent her days figuring out the German words for all the pieces and parts. Her face lost its pinched, hungry look, and a little color entered her complexion. She was still far too bony, but he suspected she'd been naturally slim even before the War and its attendant rationing._

_She relaxed quite a bit once she was entirely certain he had no ill designs — and moreover, that Frau Berger would hardly allow it even if he did. His housekeeper was the sort of battle axe that could probably scold the Kaiser into eating his vegetables._

_When he returned home the fourth day, he found his coffee table papered over with schematics, while Sigyn savored a cup of precious tea._

_"I think I have finished, Mein Herr," she said. "There are a few things I just could not find the German for, but Frau Berger helped me guess as best we could."_

_Every time Sigyn spoke of automobiles, something within her mind lit up like a Christmas tree. Was it because of a latent ability, or was it merely her passion for the subject? He needed to find others with zeal for some particular thing, so that he might have an adequate sample group._

_"There is, I believe, an automobile shop who could aid there," he said. "I would not trust them for anything, had I no one who knew better than I about all things automotive. Should the weather hold and your comfort permit it, I should like to take you there this Saturday." By now she had suitable clothes, including a warm coat of fine Merino wool. _

_"I think I would like that," she said, beaming. "Are you going to buy an auto?"_

_"I'm thinking about it. There are many factors to consider." The price of fuel was exorbitant, and he did not know how much one needed for an automobile. For once, ignorance of a subject didn't bother him, because it gave Sigyn more chance to teach._

_"I will help, if you do. Right now I am thinking Audi Type E, because most cars would be too small to be comfortable for you." She had never commented on his height, but she'd wondered more than once just how he managed in a world designed for people her size, though she was too polite to ever say it aloud. _

_"I leave it in your capable hands," he said. "Meanwhile, my day was long, and I wish nothing save to sit near the radiator and read." In truth, he wished someone would strangle his cellular biology professor, who should never have been offered a position in such a prestigious university. The man was middle-aged, arrogant, and quite frankly appallingly stupid. His character failings might have been forgivable, had he actually known anything about his subject, but he was the special sort of moron that refused to entertain the idea that he might be wrong, nor accept correction when it was given. _

_(It was true that Von Rached himself rarely thought he could be wrong, but only because he'd thoroughly researched whatever the subject might be before he actually spoke of it.)_

_"I will bring you some tea, Mein Herr." For such a solid woman, Frau Berger could move silently as a ghost when she chose; somehow, she'd entered the room entirely without his notice. "Supper will be ready in ten minutes. Today we have barley soup, toast, and baked chicken.”_

_One of Von Rached’s eyebrows rose. Before the War, that would have been exceedingly simple fare; by now, however, most meats were a luxury that few could afford. Food had never particularly interested him, but he had come to appreciate Frau Meyer’s skill, however basic her ingredients might be._

_A stray thought of Sigyn’s brushed its way past his mind, bittersweet and painful in a way for which he had no reference at all: barley soup on winter nights in Reykjavík, while outside the aurora shimmered. Her house had not been large, but it had not needed to be, given it was only her, her father, and their housekeeper. It was snug and warm, even when the bitter wind howled off the ocean, moaning around the eaves._

_He shut the thought away, though he would examine it later. The University librarian, a goddess among her kind, had told him that she could likely locate an Icelandic textbook, if given enough time; once he had a decent grasp of the language, he could inspect Sigyn’s mind more thoroughly._

_She was content enough now, though her leg ached. Aspirin was in preciously short supply, but he’d appropriated some from the hospital, and he would give her some once she had eaten. He would never have stopped to consider someone could savor something as simple as warmth, but Sigyn certainly did — but then, perhaps it was no great surprise, given she drove an ambulance in the middle of a German winter. She was warm and safe, which was more than she’d been able to say since her father died._

_And yet beneath that, lurking so deeply Von Rached could scarcely sense it, was a low, dull grief. Had she had any real chance to mourn her father? Possibly not, which could complicate things. The idea of having a parent one loved enough to mourn was so alien to him that he almost couldn’t comprehend it, but Frau Berger could deal with...that. A matronly soul such as herself would be far better suited to it than someone like Von Rached, who didn't yet know enough about how other humans functioned to successfully fake empathy._

_Tea arrived, and he feigned interest in a medical text, so that he would not be so obvious in his scrutiny of his houseguest. Somehow, she seemed at once fragile and durable: her body was relatively frail, mainly thanks to malnourishment, but there was a certain sturdiness about her in spite of it. It would have taken a will of iron to survive as she had the last few years, but he had not yet had enough time to find it within her._

_What was he to do with her, once she was healed? Right now, her injuries were his excuse to keep her in his home, but once she recovered, he had an unfortunate feeling she wouldn’t stay — propriety, and all that. It was a concept that both baffled and annoyed him, but it was a reality that even he could not simply ignore. _

Time enough to think on that_. It would be six weeks yet before her cast would be removed, and then she would need to rebuild strength in her leg. _

_Frau Berger announced supper, and Sigyn struggled to her feet. She still was not used to crutches, and her first few steps with them were unsteady. Von Rached was not entirely sure just where lay the line between solicitous and unsettling, so for now he chose to err on the side of caution, and offer help only when she looked as though she really needed it. While she trusted him well enough now, his height still somewhat unnerved her, as it did so many others. He needed to figure out a way to not...loom. Meanwhile, he settled for giving Sigyn plenty of space as she crutched her way to the dining-room. _

_The room was absurdly large for only two people, and he had brought in a smaller table than it was built to accommodate. Fortunately, the simplicity of their food meant he could dispense with the usual amount of cutlery, for Sigyn, well-mannered though she was, would have been utterly at sea. Some of her table manners seemed rather odd to him, but he was hardly going to say so; for all he knew, they were common among the middle-class, and drawing attention to it would likely only make her self-conscious._

_He didn't try to make her talk as they ate — he could well guess how difficult it might be to both respond and eat — but that did not mean they ate in awkward silence._

_“It would seem we are in for fresh snow,” he said, as he buttered a roll. (Butter was another luxury Fraus Meyer and Berger seemed to conjure from thin air.) “At this rate it might drag the city to a standstill, for there are too few now to clear the streets.” He spoke clearly, though not quite so slowly that she would notice._

_The look she gave him was inquisitive, and he watched her file away words she hadn't known. While she had no special gift for languages, she was rather good at working things out through context with what words she did know._

_“I asked the university’s financial department why you received no pension upon your father’s death,” he added. “You were not of age — you never should have been left to fend for yourself.” And indeed, he doubted she would have, if not for the War. She would hardly be the first person to fall through the cracks, nor the last._

_Her green eyes blinked in surprise. “I did not think I was supposed to get one,” she said. “They said to me, I had to go, because my German is too poor to be useful.”_

_Tomorrow, Von Rached would discover just who had made_ that _call, and make him rather sorry. Perhaps Sigyn might have been of little use to the University, but her father had been a respected professor, and abandoning her thus upon his death was simply...bad form. Von Rached would not have known a moral even if it sat up and bit him, but even he knew that certain standards ought to be respected. He didn't necessarily know what they _were_, but surely stranding an orphaned teenager in a city where she knew no one, barely able to speak the language, went against the standards of any respectable person._

Even I would not have done that,_ he thought. No, he would not have cared a whit about her loss or mental suffering, but he would nevertheless have seen that she was taken care of until she could be returned to her own country. It was only fitting. _

_~_

Pat did not, in fact, shit a brick. Apparently his body decided that was too pedestrian a reaction for a Donovan, because he had a heart attack instead.

The kitchen that evening was so crowded that at least Charlese managed to catch him before he could hit the floor; she wasn’t a tall woman, but Pat was short and wiry and light enough that he didn't knock her over like a tenpin. “_Shit, _Lorna—”

“Bloody _Jesus_, Pat—” 

Ratiri caught hold of him before Lorna could finish her sentence. Fortunately the table wasn’t yet set, so there wasn’t much for him to knock over when he set his brother-in-law on it as gently as he could. Grey skin, clammy, an ugly wheeze in his chest — it was all he could do not to echo Charlese. It was nothing he hadn't seen before, but that was entirely the problem.

“Lorna, call your sister,” he said, calm as could be. It took every ounce of training he had to manage it, but manage he did, even as he pulled at Pat’s churning, shivering aura, orange and gold strangled with threads of lead-dark pain. He could do nothing for the man’s heart, but at the very least, he could take that away. “Charlese, get me an aspirin.”

_Don't you dare, Pat, _he thought, tugging at threads of grey. _Don't you bloody dare._

He was dimly aware of somebody hustling the children out of the kitchen. Sweat beaded Pat’s pallid face, but Ratiri threw the bulk of his strength into his Gift — the man’s eyes were unfocused, his expression slack and outright serene. Pain seared up through Ratiri’s hands, shuddering along what seemed like his every nerve; he was going to pay for this later, once the grey settled in to his joints.

Charlese appeared, small white pill and a glass of water in her trembling hands. 

It didn't take too much effort to sit Pat up, though the man was limp as a noodle. “Thank you, Charlese. Pat, I know this isn’t actually any fun, but I need you to swallow this.” He could only hope he hadn't overdone it on Pat’s aura, because if he couldn't swallow, they were going to have a very large problem.

Mercifully, Pat actually seemed to hear him. Glazed though his eyes were, he even managed to nod. Ratiri prayed that he wasn’t actually aware of what was happening to him on any level.

The pill was something of an ordeal, but he got it down on the second try. Water dribbled from his lips, and Ratiri waited until he was certain Pat wasn’t going to choke before he laid him down again. 

“Just breathe, Pat. Siobhan will be here soon.” The growing agony that lanced up through Ratiri’s arms flared and ebbed with every fluttering, irregular beat of the poor man’s heart. 

Quite suddenly, there was a Lorna beside him, silent as a ghost and near as pale. She laid her hands on either side of her brother’s head, outwardly collected, but her expression was not one Ratiri would forget. _I’ve got him, allanah. I’ll keep his pain away until Siobhan gets here. _Unfortunately, her sister was still on shift at the hospital, but the DMA could be surprisingly good at shifting someone if they chose

Panic tried to tug at the edges of Lorna’s mind, but there was no time for it. Pat needed her; that was the only thing that mattered, and the only thing she’d focus on. Her thoughts were oddly detached, as though she was viewing everything through an eye not her own. The skin beneath her fingers was chilly, but he breathed. He breathed, and she bent all her thought, all her will on keeping him that way.

_No, Pat. Not now. Not today. _A strange, incongruous sense of calm had taken hold of her: her brother wasn’t going to that pale forest. He wasn’t, and she would not fear it, but she couldn't let him fear it, either. In that moment, in the bright, obscenely golden light of her kitchen and dining-room, she knew with utter surety that Pat could not be allowed to see any sign of uncertainty — of anything at all that might somehow cause his fuzzy mind any manner of concern or doubt.

_Lorna? _His mental voice was muzzy, drugged, but there was a note of lucidity in it.

_I’m here. It’s all right, or it will be soon enough. Shiv’s on her way, and then you’ll be taking it easy for a while. _Her tone, even within her mind, would brook no argument. He was too fucking young for this, dammit; he hadn't even hit sixty yet, but it wouldn’t take him. 

_Am I — am I dying? _The thought was mercifully detached, void of all terror; instead, it was oddly curious.

Her expression shifted to something hard as steel and twice as strong. _No. _He’d watched _Game of Thrones _with her and Ratiri, so she added, _What do we say to the God of Death?_

Incredibly, a tiny trace of real amusement curled through his hazed mind. _Not today._

_Too fucking right._

She was barely aware when her sister stormed in through the sliding-glass door, accompanied by the scent of grass and roses. Shiv had, by now, learned to temper her Gift, so that she didn't take more than she could handle. Neither Lorna nor Ratiri would have to literally drag her away before she could keel over.

“Pat, I’m pretty sure our gran’d be ashamed’v you.” Siobhan’s face was red with exertion, and her words were somewhat breathless, but she was very...present. Present as only a Donovan could be. “Didn't she live to be ninety-fucking-seven?”

“She did.” Lorna moved over, and so did Ratiri, so that her sister might have actual space to work. Pat was out of danger, or would be soon enough, and meanwhile he had a terrified daughter who was actually, physically restrained by the twins.

“Saoirse, he’s gonna be okay. Aunt Siobhan’s got him now.” Marty’s milky, mismatched eyes held Saoirse’s. “You know she’d smack him back to life if she had to. What’d you call it once, when that guy failed the CPR drill in the hospital and got so pissed off?” Her voice was a focus, enough to drag Saoirse’s attention away from her father.

“The Miraculous Bitchslap of Life,” she said, a little dreamily. Mairead had her in the steady grip of telepathic Xanax, since it was the only way to keep her from zapping the living shit out of the entire kitchen. It meant Saoirse did actually seem kind of stoned, but better that than the alternative.

Lorna choked on a laugh before she could help it. “All right, allanah, I want the story behind that, but meanwhile, your da actually is out’v danger. Come on to hospital with us — we’re going to Uncle Gerald and Uncle Mick. Er, Taranis…” 

The man himself had stayed well out of the way, but he seemed unfazed, and even mildly curious. Had he ever actually seen a human having a heart attack? How much human interaction had he even had, in the years since the battle on the ice?

“I will bring my tea,” he said, and his tone suggested this was a monumental decision. “I am not unfamiliar with the workings of a hospital, or your healers. Should any ask, say simply that I am Saoirse’s teacher.”

Lorna was not at all looking forward to trying to explain him to Katje, but for now she had a Pat to focus on. Siobhan had gone grey with pain and weariness, but she’d actually pulled away at a reasonable point; she’d just need rest. Mick and Gerald could fuss, and...oh good Jesus.

She hurried into the sitting-room, and found a pale Grania and equally pale Lorna the Younger, holding each other near the woodstove. “So, uh, Pat’ll be all right,” she said. “We’re taking him up to the DMA. Go ahead and raid the pantry, because I don't know when any’v us’ll be back. If the cats pester you too much, there’s some treats in the cupboard over the fridge.” She couldn't imagine how strange this must be for them — for all they’d wanted nothing to do with Pat, she was certain neither actually wished him ill.

Rather than make it awkward, she hurried to find shoes for all the kids. Thank god Ratiri had insisted they keep a folding wheelchair in the coat closet — she’d thought he was mental, but she understood now. 

She had a dim awareness of Charlese ringing the hospital as she unfolded the chair. Pat would hate it, but Pat could bloody well deal with it — and with the fact that they’d be getting an expedited trip through tunnels and DMA alike.

_He could have died. If he’d been out working on the mountain, he might well have._

The thought was not at all welcome, and Lorna scowled. _They’ve got a healer out there with every crew_, she retorted. _He’d’ve hated life, but he’d’ve hung onto it anyway._

Mercifully, her mind seemed unwilling to torment her further. Now was not the time for anything but action; all thoughts of her family’s mortality would just have to wait until her brother was settled in hospital, and probably complaining the entire while.

~

Because Von Rached remained unable to cross the boundary of the Duncan property, he was utterly unaware of the inadvertent destruction he’d wrought. He had a half hour of ignorance, before the entire damn family herded their way into the tunnels, complete with a pale, wheelchair-bound Patrick.

What.

Von Rached was quite grateful the Lady had restored his powers to him, because it made it far easier for him to apprise himself of the situation. He did not dare enter deeply into anyone’s mind, but that wasn’t necessary; merely skimming recent memories was more than bad enough.

Very rarely in his life had Von Rached truly botched something, but on the rare occasions he did, he did so with a vengeance. Though his intentions had, for once, been as pure as he was capable of, he’d inadvertently set up a chain reaction that began with the Blank and ended with surprise Norse deities and a heart attack.

The cat was never going to let him hear the end of this.

He supposed he ought to feel some measure of guilt for this. Surely, the Lady would tell him so, and yet...how? This had not been the intended consequence, and there was (probably) no lasting harm done, and yet he was entirely certain the Lady would expect a greater expression of remorse than, ‘Well, that was unfortunate.’

_Guilt would come easily enough if one of the twins had been injured_. Having seen the girl’s Gift at work, he could imagine, a little too well, just what it might have done to one of his children. Though he was incapable of really feeling anything, the thought sent him cold anyway. He’d seen just what lightning could do to the human body, and his mind’s eye traced phantom Lichtenberg figures over the veins in his son’s small face. Yes, some ninety percent of victims of natural strikes survived, but his children were tiny, and their cousin was potentially the human equivalent of Thor. An equivalent with a time bomb in her head — that he’d been the one to set off.

There was no guilt yet, but that sort of fear was something Von Rached could well understand. Even until the end of his life, he had never directly admitted that he’d come to love his children, but love them he did, and his hubris could well have killed them. He’d been so certain that he could just wall the Blank away, but he really ought to have known that nothing involving a Donovan could be so simple.

_You could have killed your children. You could have destroyed Lorna, _again_, in a manner from which there would be no recovery. If you cannot feel guilt for your mistake, perhaps you really are a sociopath._

Once upon a time, Von Rached would have worn the title without a qualm. Now, however….

_Fix this. Somehow._


	10. Chapter Ten

Say what one might about the DMA, they knew how to shift people around in a hurry. Yeah, it was going to cause havoc with quite a lot of commutes, but the teams were prepared to break schedule and rush somebody to the nearest ambulance point. Some might grumble, but at least they knew the service worked — and someday they might well be in need of it themselves.

Poor Pat still looked ill enough that nobody said a word when the tram took off less than half-full, rattling its way along at top speed. Admittedly, the herd of Donovans accompanying him might have helped...as might the presence of Taranis, who managed to just generally...loom.

_ Allanah, there's more. There's so much more, but it has to wait until Pat's settled. _

Ratiri glanced down at his wife. She was outwardly calm, but her aura swirled with grey worry. _ Am I going to want a drink? _

_ Probably a whole fifth. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine any other explanation. The guess I've got is bad — and weird — enough _.

That really was not what Ratiri needed after this day, but he supposed he ought to be grateful for the warning. Beautiful. 

The ambulance that met them at the next stop whisked Pat, Ratiri, Lorna, and Saoirse away to the hospital; the rest of them could get there in their own time. The man looked marginally less grey, but Ratiri wasn’t about to fool himself by thinking that had been anything but a very close shave.

And yet, _ how _? Pat had a physical every year, as they all did, and his heart had been fine. Decent cholesterol, decent blood pressure, and being a single father forced him to eat reasonably well. 

_ He did rather a lot of drugs as a young man. _The thought was grim, but accurate; three out of the four Donovan siblings had had severely misspent youths, Pat among them. One didn't need a doctor to realize that could leave lasting damage, long after the drug use itself had ceased.

Now was not the time, however. He would rest, and fresh healers would tend to him. He was not, however, going to enjoy the diet he’d be placed on — if he had to move in with Siobhan, or she with him, she’d keep him on the straight and unfortunately narrow dietary path he’d have to follow for the next year. Physical exertion was also right out for now, but the clinic could always use an extra pair of hands. 

They could do this. Pat would recover, and Lorna and Siobhan could be ready for the myriad tests that would shortly be run on them. Thank the Lady that Mick at least had more or less taken care of himself — yes, he’d probably drank too much as a teenager, but he was Irish. That almost invariably went with the territory.

Ratiri glanced at Lorna again. All throughout their childhood, the Donovan siblings had each other — they were four against the world, because God knew it was against them, and in the face of all odds, they’d found each other again. What were they going to do, when the first one was lost? None of them were young; it was only a matter of time.

_ Not now. _That too could wait. It was not something that Ratiri, only child that he was, was likely to understand. ‘Taranis’ was enough to be getting on with in his own right. Just...good grief.

Saoirse, pale and quiet, watched her father with nearly unblinking eyes. Like all the Donovans, she looked younger than she was; in that moment, she was a child permeated by the very real fear of losing her father. Lacking a mother, Pat was the only parent she’d ever known.

Ratiri did his best to pick the grey from her aura, but his hands still hurt terribly. Pain traveled up his nerves in hot waves, flaring and ebbing with his pulse. He’d have to sneak off for a painkiller, or a session with another aura-manipulator.

When the ambulance reached the hospital, a gurney was ready and waiting. It was busy as ever, and he found he did not miss it at all. His stint in A&E during school might have left him with some interesting stories (the Uni student who’d tried to have a wank with cinnamon massage oil immediately sprang to mind), but he was glad that was long in the past.

“What happens now?” Saoirse asked.

“They’ll run some tests,” Ratiri said, “and keep him overnight for observation. They’ll bring cots if we want to stay, but they might not let us sleep in the same room with him. We don't need to risk waking him up.” He spoke as soothingly as he was able, but he wasn’t going to lie to the girl. His dad had once told him that there was a special hell for doctors who outright lied to children — but that didn't mean he had to give Saoirse any details. There was such a thing as too much honesty.

The girl was silent, and the twins squashed her in a hug between them. Her aura smoothed out a little, and he realized Mairead was likely giving her telepathic Xanax.

Ratiri frowned. There was nothing technically wrong with that — it didn't, after all, involve reading anything — but Mairead was so young that it made him uneasy. 

_ She's nothing like him. Nothing. What matters is that she's helping Saoirse. Leave it. _

_ ~ _

Lorna didn't truly relax until Pat was admitted, set up, and monitored. Another healer finished stabilizing him, and all three siblings plus his daughter assured him they weren't going anywhere. 

The entire lot of them appropriated a waiting room, and settled in with tea and slightly stale biscuits. The sofas — ungodly floral things that screamed 'fussy English grandmother' — were comfortable enough, even if they were permeated with the harsh alcohol scent of disinfectant.

Someone had scared up a sketchbook and some pencils, so the children could occupy themselves. Unfortunately, that just gave the adults time to think — time they did not actually appreciate.

_ More chroí, what did you have to tell me? _

Lorna didn't look up at him, though she wanted to. _ What I saw in Saoirse's head — what exactly it was, but also what it _wasn't.

Ratiri really was not ready for the bomb she dropped on him. How could…? Just, _ how? Lorna, that's — _

_ — Mental? _ she supplied. _ I know, but allanah, if you can come up with a better explanation, I’d love to hear it. No telepath that I know’v could’ve done that — even Ashley, god bloody rot her, couldn’t have left so little sign. _The woman behind the eruption of Kilimanjaro had been the strongest non-Donovan and non-Von Rached that Lorna had ever encountered, but this, Lorna was sure, would have been beyond even her.

Ratiri pulled her close. _ But why? _ he asked. _ And how? Mo chroí, _ nobody _ knows about the twins. You, me, Geezer, Katje, Gerald, and Rachel — that’s it. Miranda likely knew, but if she didn't take that secret to her grave, I’d be very surprised. Besides, there aren’t any new people on the mountain, and nobody that powerful could get through the DMA without setting off all sorts of alarms. _ It was, as surely everyone knew by now, totally impossible to hide a Gift — not from the watchers. While there was a small chance this hypothetical Von Rached descendant had made their way through the DMA anyway, it was a very, very _ small _chance.

_ We’ll just have to ask Sharley, _ Lorna said, _ and hope she has an answer she can actually understand and share. _There was always a very real possibility that there were too many potentialities to even make an educated guess; when that happened, she was usually unwilling to say anything at all, lest she risk fucking everything up.

Eventually, exhaustion won out. She fell asleep before Ratiri, but not by very much; soon enough they were both lost in uneasy dreams.

~

Von Rached waited until Lorna and Ratiri were well under before he dared enter the latter’s mind. What he found there would have made him groan, if he’d had any form with which to do so.

Lorna’s conclusion, erroneous as it was, was not without logic, and it made him pause. _ Did _he have other children? He highly doubted it. Women like Katje had been few and far between, because his work had, by and large, been more interesting. He’d been as careful as one reasonably could in the days before reliable contraception, and none of his former liaisons had ever tried to contact him later, as one might expect of a woman with an unplanned pregnancy in years past. Lorna’s supposition was totally wrong, and yet, as she said, what else was she to think?

_ And what do you intend to do about it? _It was a question for which he had no answer. He’d already been forced to stay away from his daughter’s mind, but now he dared not enter any of the Donovans’. Unless he was very much mistaken, Lorna would lay traps — he could possibly evade them, but not without notice. He was, for now, totally stymied.

The cat really was going to be insufferable.

His attention wandered from the sleeping pair to the children, all of whom now sketched quietly in a corner. _ How _had his work in Saoirse’s mind gone so very wrong? She was far from the first Asperger’s patient he’d ever worked with, and she wasn’t a telepath.

_ She is, however, a Donovan, _he thought grimly. Moreover, she was a Donovan possessed of an...ailment...of which he really did know very little. He should have known better than to attempt containment so soon.

Well, there was nothing to be done for it now. Perhaps inspiration would strike, given time; for now, they would only be lulled into complacency if there was nothing at all for them to find. With any luck, Lorna would abandon her suspicions when there was nothing to further substantiate them, however false. At least her hapless brother would keep her occupied and then some.

~

The thing about being a zombie was that it took a great deal to faze one, and Marty was no exception. Though she had to drag her stool around the kitchen to do it, she managed grilled cheese sandwiches for Grania and Lorna the Younger. Both of them seemed...well, really weird right now, and while Marty didn't understand it, she did know that food tended to comfort the living.

“Bet you didn't think it’d be this exciting, huh?” The kitchen was so quiet that she felt she had to say _ something _, and that was all she could think of.

“I’m not sure what I thought it would be,” Grania said. She was pale and quiet, and Marty really didn't know what to make of that — there could be all sorts of reasons why, and with adult humans, it was hard to guess. 

“I was afraid meeting Da’s family would just turn out to be...a mess,” her daughter sighed. She’d nibbled at her sandwich, but had only managed to eat half of it. “Now I’ve got a sister I never knew about who’s even more broken than I am, and Da’s gone and had a heart attack…”

She shut her eyes, and Marty regarded her. It would probably be best to keep her talking, if that was even possible. “He’ll probably be okay. The DMA’s good like that.”

The young woman stared out the sliding-glass door, her expression writ with unhappiness. “When he’d left, when I was a kid, I used to wish something would happen to him,” she said quietly. “I wished he’d get hit by a bus, or just...something. This, though — Jesus, if he dies, I might never forgive myself.”

“Why?” Marty asked, mystified. “It doesn’t work like that, y’know. You can’t actually hurt somebody just by wishing. There wouldn’t be anybody left alive in the whole world if it did work like that. It’d just be us zombies, and that would be totally boring.”

Lorna the Younger’s green, green eyes tracked back to her. “Are you like, not able to get worried about _ anything _?” she asked.

Marty shrugged. “I’m dead,” she said. “What’s there to worry about? But you shouldn’t worry, either. Uncle Pat’ll be fine, and Aunt Lorna’ll figure out some way to fix yours and Saoirse’s brains. I know it seems kinda crazy here, but shit does actually get done.”

Both women stared at her in open disbelief, but neither actually contradicted her. It was possible they didn't dare.

~

When Lorna woke again, she found everyone else well out. 

As much as she didn't want to get up, her bladder was insisting she do something about it, so she crept out of the room as quietly as she could. She had one hell of a crick in her neck, and she tried to stretch it out as she walked.

Though the DMA never truly slept — it really couldn’t, given the Doors served the entire globe — the hospital still tried to observe something like night conditions on the wards every day. It helped get all the patients onto a roughly similar circadian rhythm, and for many it simply seemed more natural.

It had to be very late now, for there were few enough staff about, and all was as quiet as it was ever going to be. No beds or gurneys passed; indeed, it was so quiet, and so nearly deserted, that of course her mind immediately jumped to zombie films.

The nearest bathroom was free, but once she’d used it, she had no real desire to go back to the waiting room. Her reflection was ashy, dark smudges beneath her eyes, and her hair half undone from its braid. She tidied it before she went out again, whereupon her stomach let her know how unpleasantly empty it was. Cafeteria food did not sound appealing, but Lorna just didn't have the energy to walk to something outside the hospital.

It was actually quite nice, so far as hospitals went — it had the same chemical, antiseptic smell as all the other hospitals she’d ever been in, but the bulbs were softer incandescent, rather than cold fluorescent. The walls were a soft shade of peach, with a framed picture here and there among the clipboards and hand sanitizers, and it was warm enough. It was nothing at all like the Institute, and yet it was the Institute that tugged at the edges of her thought, even as she stalked the wards like a tiny ghost.

Suppose she was wrong, and Von Rached didn't have any descendants he hadn't been aware of — what other logical scenario was there? Whoever had fucked about in Saoirse’s mind had a huge amount of skill to back up their power. Even if the person wasn’t connected to Von Rached’s family at all, they had to be a natural-born telepath.

Why the children, though? And how? If targeting them wasn’t merely coincidence, Lorna would very, very surprised. Perhaps this person didn't actually _ know _anything at all, but had merely made guesses that were unfortunately accurate.

Fortunately, the cafeteria was almost empty. It smelled of stale coffee and extremely sugary donuts — neither were her preference, but food was food. She collected one of the few clean plastic trays left, gave it a good wipe with a sinus-stinging disinfectant cloth, and made the rounds, padding nearly silent on stocking feet.

_ Where are you, Sharley? _Ever since Kilimanjaro, the woman hadn't taken any more holidays in the Other, but that didn't mean she could be easily found on Earth. She’d gone to New Zealand, but that didn't mean she would have stayed there. She went where she was relatively sure she’d be needed, and more often than not, she was right.

Lorna wanted, oh so much, to be wrong. As she sat on the hard plastic seat (too tall, of course; her feet dangled well off the ground), she silently prayed for it.

“I don't know.”

Of bloody course Lorna had a bite of donut in her mouth, and of bloody course she choked on it. Sharley had to thump her on the back to bring it back up — and it had to be Sharley, because the woman’s faintly raspy voice was unmistakable.

“What?” Lorna wheezed. Christ, a bit of bile had come up with the donut, burning harsh in her throat.

“If Von Rached actually had any other kids.” Sharley moved around the table, and sat facing Lorna. She looked weary, though it was difficult to tell. Her skin never shifted from its unearthly, bloodless pallor. Only her mismatched eyes betrayed her — and even then, one had to know what to look for. “I mean, there’s a few timelines where he did, but I don't think this was one of ’em. Of course, I can’t actually be _ sure. _”

There was no actual bitterness in her tone, as there would once have been — merely annoyance. Her gift, if one could even call it that, remained a broken, imperfect thing; by this point, nobody thought it would ever be otherwise.

“How many timelines?” Lorna asked, unease whispering through her veins.

“Eight,” Sharley sighed. “Granted, in some of them, the kid died young, but in others...I dunno. Not yet, anyway.”

Lorna drained the last of her coffee, and grimaced at the burnt, bitter harshness of it. “Any idea what this might be? If it’s one’v them, or something totally unrelated?”

“Also not yet. Whatever this is, it’s either too complex right now, or it’s something that shouldn’t be possible in the first place.”

Once upon a time, Lorna wouldn’t have even entertained the idea that something could violate natural order as anyone knew it, but the War happened, and she’d stopped insisting that anything might be entirely impossible. “Fucking brilliant. Can you at least stay home for a while?”

A smile flitted over Sharley’s face, warm and brief as lightning. “Unless I’m suddenly needed somewhere else, I’m not going anywhere. Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on that Taranis.”

“Oh, good Jesus,” Lorna groaned. She’d managed to entirely forget about him, but of course that couldn’t be allowed to last. That would have actually made life easier, at least for the moment, but of course the universe couldn’t possibly be so kind. “I don't suppose you’ve got any inkling’v what’ll happen with...that?”

“Welllll,” Sharley said. “So far as I’ve seen, nothing burns the forest down. I’d count that as a win.”

“At this point,” Lorna muttered, glaring at her mug like it had personally offended her, “I’ll take whatever the hell we can get.” Eventually, her serenity would reboot itself, but she somehow doubted that would be any time soon.

~

_ Von Rached had anticipated there would be a certain level of entertainment in his adventures in automobile purchasing, but even he couldn’t have imagined how right he would be. _

_ The morning was clear as a diamond, and so cold that it nearly stole his breath even with his heavy coat. He was glad that he had ordered Sigyn an overcoat in soft, pale grey Merino wool, fully lined and tailored — it was unfashionably long, brushing her ankles, but it fit her well. The length also had the double-benefit of obscuring the fact that she wore trousers, rather than a dress: as she had pointed out, trousers were far warmer, though her cast made them somewhat less than practical. _

_ Someone had thrown sand over the pavements, but he nevertheless stayed right behind her while she crutched her way to the hired car, lest she find some rogue patch of ice along the way. It took a moment to get her settled in the back seat, but the interior was warm, even if it smelled somewhat of cigars. _

_ “Now, Mein Herr, this man may try to cheat you,” she said. “These men, they will see someone who is young with money and maybe think that person is stupid, and will buy whatever they are told is...is...style?” _

_ “I believe the word you want is ‘fashionable’,” he said. “I intend to make certain that is exactly what they will see. Things become so much more interesting when your opponent underestimates you.” _

_ A brush of Sigyn’s mind told him that she wondered if anybody had ever underestimated him for more than five minutes. Unfortunately, he evidently had yet to find a way to avoid looming. _

_ Though the ride was not long, Von Rached would not tax her vocabulary before she had any chance to exercise it. Her accent was already much improved, even if her grammar was still very much a work in progress. Perhaps more importantly, she had finally learned to properly relax, now that she was certain he meant her no harm. _

_ By the time they reached their destination, the pavements were thronged, awash in a river of humanity so intent upon its errands that it might well carry away the unwary, or drown them in damp, smelly wool. Sigyn’s crutches would have put her at real risk, had he not walked behind her once more; at times, looming did have its advantages, and there were few enough who failed to scurry out of his way. _

_ He was not at all surprised to find the establishment empty, save for himself, Sigyn, and a lone salesman — a small, tidy man of perhaps forty, in a suit cut in the fashion of a decade before, with a well-groomed mustache and hair parted straight and severe as the line of a ruler. Someone with standards, choosing quality over fashion — in other words, a man with common sense. _

_ Sharp hazel eyes cataloged Von Rached and Sigyn with somewhat impressive speed, though the suspicions that formed within his mind were both plausible yet predictable, and amusingly wrong. The man immediately spotted that not only were their clothes much newer than his own, they too had largely chosen function over fashion. Von Rached’s age was difficult to guess, but it would be logical that he be somewhere in the neighborhood of Sigyn’s — and Sigyn, though eighteen, had the face and figure of a somewhat younger girl. _

_ Confusion flitted through the man’s thoughts, but he rallied within moments. The details mattered little to him — this young man clearly had money. _

_ “How can I be of assistance, mein Herr?” Sigyn’s gloves prevented any chance to see a ring or lack of one, but this man would not have addressed even had he known one way or the other. She was female, and thus irrelevant to him. _

_ “I am in search of a vehicle,” Von Rached said. The garage itself was as tidy as this salesman — there were few enough automobiles, but they gleamed with a nearly mirror shine. Several scents permeated the air, some of which he knew: new rubber and metal polish. Another was unknown to him, but Sigyn recognized it as machine oil. _

_ He did not properly hear the salesman’s reply, because her mind once again lit up like a Christmas tree — no, like a beacon, flaring bright as lightning as her eyes roved each and every auto. _

_ “Might I show mein Herr a Daimler?” The salesman’s voice practically dripped with persuasion, but his mind was filled only with greed. _

_ Even Von Rached knew that the Kaiser himself had once driven a Daimler; they were and remained one of the most costly automobiles available in Germany. Sigyn, it would seem, had been correct. _

_ “I wish to inspect an Audi Type E,” he said blandly, with the briefest glance at Sigyn. Her nod was so barely perceptible that he suspected it was entirely unconscious. _

_ The salesman’s thought screeched to a near-halt, but jumped onto a branch line with a speed that spoke of practice. He was likely so desperate to sell something that he would show a carriage with one wheel, should that prove the customer’s preference. “Yes, mein Herr. If you would please follow me.” _

_ Yet again, he utterly ignored Sigyn, who quirked one eyebrow at Von Rached once the man had passed. It was the closest she would come to outright rolling her eyes — she’d been brought up too well to do such a thing in public. He kept pace with her, so that the salesman would be forced to at least register her presence. That he should disregard her so thoroughly was something of a surprise, really; a pair of newlyweds, or a couple recently engaged, would likely find that incredibly rude. It was certainly at odds with the man’s demeanor in dealing with Von Rached himself. _

_ The automobile diverted Von Rached’s attention. He had read much about autos, with Sigyn and in his spare time, and he had a certain appreciation for their appearance. This one had a body of deep forest green, polished to perfection, with running-boards of gleaming new wood. The canopy was open, revealing wide, cushioned seats of soft leather, very much like traditional carriage seats, and large enough even for someone of his height to sit comfortably enough. _

_ Sigyn eyed it, and eyed him. She crutched over to the auto, appraising, and her gaze traveled to the space that the canopy would occupy when in use. “Mein Herr, you will need custom here,” she said. “I think you would not hit your head, but you would not be seeing out the windows. May I hear the engine?” _

_ The salesman blinked, because there was absolutely no way he could ignore her now. A glimpse into his mind revealed that while Sigyn was not the first to make such a request, few enough had the wisdom to inspect anything beneath the bonnet, because few enough could make heads or tails of it if they did. _

_ “It would be much appreciated,” Von Rached said, desert-dry. “This is, after all, an investment.” _

_ Somewhat flustered, the man acquiesced, and hurried to his office to retrieve...something. Von Rached knew not what, nor did he care. _

_ “And what is your opinion thus far, Fräulein?” he asked. _

_ “Body seem solid,” she said, rapping her knuckles against the bonnet. Long fingers ran over the paint, and found no imperfections. “No rust.” _

_ With some difficulty, she levered herself up onto the running-board, and Von Rached moved to catch her, should she require it. Carefully, she shifted her herself along it, not quite jumping with her good leg. “This might sound rude, mein Herr, but what is your weight? It will affect how this drive.” _

_ Von Rached didn't laugh, but it was a near thing. “Fourteen stone,” he said. _

_ Her eyebrows rose. He wasn’t a heavily built man, but he weighed more than one might expect just by sheer dint of his height. “Then I think this will be fine. Not...not…” _

_ She was struggling so much searching for the right term that Von Rached cheated, and spoke an answer to a question she had not actually asked. “Imbalance?” he offered. _

_ “Yes,” she said. “That.” With great care, she stepped down off the running-board, and managed not to stumble along the way. The pain in her leg echoed into Von Rached’s mind; she would need something for it when they returned home, even though he knew she would not ask. _

_ The salesman returned, key in hand. He started the vehicle when bidden, which was a process in and of itself: the key unlocked a mechanism at the steering wheel, but assorted switches needed flipping and knobs needed pulling before the engine came to life, but start it did. Sigyn...listened. _

_ Von Rached rarely looked deeper than her surface thoughts, but now he followed all the branching lines of her awareness. Both he and the salesman had ceased to exist; her attention was now given wholly to the engine. To his ears, it was somewhat loud; more than that, he could not discern on his own, but to Sigyn it was its own kind of music. Music that, at the moment, had a single discordant note. _

_ Without the bother of asking, she opened the bonnet, and nearly dropped her crutches in doing so. He caught one before she could, and was fully prepared to catch _ her, _ should her balance fail her as she inspected the engine. Her eyes were wide, as though she thought she could see to the very center of the object — and he realized, with something of a jolt, that in one way she actually did. Her vision did not penetrate the outer cover, but her mind followed lines of energy that mapped and shaped a mental schematic with impressive speed. _

_ “Somebody has been driving this,” she said, “and they have been doing it badly. The transmission shaft is dented.” _

_ He did not ask if she was certain, for he could see the dent in her mental schematic — and the discordant note was all the more obvious. “How does such a thing happen? What mistakes must one make in driving, to cause it?” _

_ “Bad shifting,” she said. “And it was weak to begin with. Made wrong.” _

_ “Can it be repaired?” _

_ Again, her eyes traveled engine. “With the right tools, yes, but before it drives again. The dent is small, but will get bigger if it drives more before repairs. And if this man wants to sell autos, he needs to make sure nothing is wrong. This can be seen easy if you actually _ look.” _ She shut the bonnet, and looked over it to the salesman, who seemed torn somewhere between baffled and uncomfortable. _

_ “I will purchase it, on one condition,” Von Rached said smoothly. “Repair the transmission shaft; my companion says that someone must have been driving it poorly. Fail to repair it and she will know.” _

_ Finally, the man truly looked at Sigyn, and Von Rached very nearly laughed aloud at the barest hint of challenge in her expression. This slip of a woman, broken leg, crutches, and all, was on some level daring someone to question her knowledge. Her mind, still attuned to the now-silent engine, skirted the edges of an odd sort of euphoria that was downright infectious. _

_ Had Von Rached himself ever felt anything like it? No, he was certain he had not, for there was a purity to it that was beyond his capacity to produce. Green eyes alight, two spots of color on her cheeks, wreathed in elation whose source she neither understood nor questioned — in that moment, she seemed something other than wholly human. _

_ He was not terribly surprised that he wanted to kiss her, but he was deeply concerned by the fact that he very nearly actually did it. Self-control was one of the foundations of his very being — that he could come so near wavering was not a thing he wished to examine, but it would have to be done sooner or later. Yes, he wanted — but he wanted on his own terms. _


	11. Chapter Eleven

Saoirse had not wanted to leave her father, but by the next day, she accepted that he needed the rest. She, along with the twins, was gently coaxed home, where cats and cocoa waited.

Grania and Lorna the Younger waited as well, which really couldn’t be helped; it wasn’t their fault a Norse deity had dropped in and given Pat a heart attack. Marty and Charlese between them had conspired to keep everybody fed (including the cats, who were quite miffed at all the upheaval in their routine).

Mother and daughter were in the kitchen when a yawning Saoirse wandered in. Neither quite knew what to make of the girl — Lorna the Elder had told them that she had Asperger’s, and that while she was a nice girl, her verbal filter was all but nonexistent. She was such a physical clone of her elder sister that it was beyond creepy, and she seemed as baffled by them as they were by her.

“Hi,” she said. No sooner had she climbed onto a kitchen chair than Mary had a cup of cocoa in her hands. Cocoa was still something of a luxury, but Sharley managed to get it somehow. “Da’s not gonna die. I mean, I dunno if you care, but he’s not.” 

Her words were so matter-of-fact, and so entirely without condemnation, that Lorna blinked. “Why wouldn’t we care?” she asked. In truth, she didn't _ want _to care — not at this late date — but she wasn’t a monster. She couldn't help it, on some level.

“Da said he was a worthless gobshite when he was supposed to be your da,” Saoirse said, just as plainly. “He said you probably don't want to talk to him, and he doesn’t blame you. He’s been a good da to me, but he said a long time ago that he had to get his head out of his arse before he was any use to anybody.”

_ “Mam said they were all gobshites when they were younger,” _ Mairead offered, from her position atop the refrigerator. _ “They didn't really mean to be, but they were.” _It was hard to imagine, and yet at the same time, it wasn’t. Mother, aunt, and uncle were still rougher around the edges than most people the twins knew, and they had some weird habits — Mam had hoarded food for years before the War, until Da convinced her she didn't need to because she wasn’t ever going to go hungry.

“He was,” Lorna sighed. She too found herself holding a cup of cocoa, courtesy of a Marty who moved so silently she might have been a ghost rather than a zombie. The morning sunlight caught the dozen or so prisms over the sink, and little rainbows danced over everything — including her mug. “Sometimes he’d be grand, and I’d think everything was going to be okay, but then it went to shit...er, no offense,” she added. No matter how phlegmatic Saoirse seemed over her father’s past, it maybe wasn’t nice to bring up details.

“Uncle Gerald said it’s usually a cycle,” Saoirse said. “Da said the same thing. Things feel good, like you can actually crawl out’v the hole and be a real person, but the drugs and the booze call and you fall down again, and usually take the people that love you with you. He said your family going to shit was totally his fault.”

Grania blinked. She hadn't asked about Pat, and the Duncans had been tactful enough to never bring him up, save to tell her that he too lived on the mountain, and had a younger daughter. It was somewhat hard to credit the idea that he’d really, truly changed — oh, Lorna the Elder said so, but she was his sister, and possibly wired to overlook things. “I’ll admit, I didn't exactly help,” she sighed.

“That don't matter,” Charlese said, as she passed by with a plate of toast. “You can’t help an addict if they don't want to be helped. Even if you’d stood by him every step and shoved him into rehab with your own two hands, he had to make that decision. Don't kick yourself for something that ain’t your fault.”

_ “He won’t come here when he’s out of the hospital,” _ Jerry added, in answer to a question neither mother nor daughter had dared ask. _ “He’ll go with Aunt Shiv, because she can actually make him behave. I think that’s just code for sticking him in a blanket burrito, like they used to do to Uncle Mick when he got annoying.” _

Grania and Lorna exchanged a glance. If nothing else, this was certainly more than distracting. While the latter hadn't forgot her recent Blank episode — _ that _ was all but impossible — it felt less important now.

_ I can’t talk to him, _ Grania thought. _ Not now. Not yet. _Heart attack or not — change of the heart that had been attacked or not — Pat had all but destroyed her and their daughter’s lives, and then walked out. Whatever the cause, the effect had been the same; disappearing had been the best thing he had ever done, devastating thought was. While she hoped he’d be okay, that was as much as she could do just then. Unlike her daughter, she had never actively wished ill upon him...but that didn't mean she wanted him back in her life, either.

Mercifully, everybody seemed, at least for now, to understand that. Grania prayed that it would stay that way — especially given her daughter’s ongoing issues with the Blank.

~

Lorna the Elder wasn’t able to leave the DMA until after lunch — it took her that long to line up substitutes for her classes, so that her students didn't find themselves utterly adrift. Gavin hadn't been thrilled to be tapped, but he was one of the strongest telepaths they had, and at least it got him out of paperwork.

She checked on Pat before she went home, and found him dozing. Gerald said that he might be able to have proper visitors after dinner, if he was properly awake, and had promised to call the house should that actually prove the case.

Struggling her way through some of the narrower corridors actually made her miss her days with a walking-stick. Yes, her leg had hurt like an absolute bitch after a long-ish walk, but the stick had been a fantastic way of knocking people out of her path.

_ And honestly, I’d almost take it over this damn eye. _Her left eye’s light perception had grown to the point where it could register colors if they were screamingly bright and in strong light, but it still saw nothing but amorphous blobs where people and objects should be, and nothing at all in dimness. The right had long since learned to compensate, but monocular vision sucked no matter how you stacked it. 

A few people ooched out of her way as she made for the tram, glancing down at her, and she fought a sigh. The other benefit of the leg was that the scar was only visible if she wore shorts, whereas the eye couldn’t even be half-arse concealed unless she wore sunglasses — which were hardly practical indoors. All too often, it was a reminder of a time in her life she would really rather forget, but her mind still refused to leave the Institute...and those connected to it.

The tram was so packed that she actually wound up standing on the back of a seat, gripping the handlebar overhead. The murmur of commuters washed around her in a gentle, generally incomprehensible babble that was almost soothing, in its own way. Lorna paid it no heed, for it did nothing to quiet her own mind.

Sharley’s ability was an imperfect thing, but it was rare that she faced something utterly unknown. That this would be the case now made Lorna more uneasy than it probably ought to — and if it didn't potentially have something to do with Von Wretched, it probably wouldn’t.

A jolt ran along the tram, as it braked; sections of the track were not the smoothest, and it was difficult to find the time to repair them. The riders were used to this, however, and to a one they braced themselves before the stop. Several people wound up joining Lorna atop the seats, hanging on just as she did — the rest of them, of course, were either older children or young teenagers, just the right height for it.

_ Why can that man not stay _ gone _ ? How the hell is it that he still has influence on the world, five years later? _ Ashley, the woman behind the eruption of Kilimanjaro, might have been the worst of the would-be Von Rached acolytes, but she was far from the only one, and he was still a semi-regular figure on a slow news day — people were continually finding new ways to blame him for something, accurately or not. On the one hand, Lorna couldn’t really blame them, but on the other, the man was _ dead. _Let him be forgotten.

She was glad enough to disembark, and gladder still that the tunnels had little enough traffic at this time of day. Von Rached, and any theoretical problems he might be indirectly responsible for, would have to take a backseat to the Blank, and the two young women afflicted with it.

The sun shone bright when she emerged into the back garden, though there was enough of a breeze that it wasn’t terribly warm. She was met with the thoroughly surreal sight of Taranis the Giant Ginger watching Marty mow the lawn — which in reality was Marty hanging onto the handle for dear life and trying to keep up. The twins had done the same thing, when they were younger and smaller; for whatever reason, they actually thought it was fun. Considering nothing had ever exploded while they were doing so, Lorna had been content to let them, because she trusted that nobody was going to lose a toe or a foot.

Taranis, though...he gave her a cheerful wave. He didn't appear at all surprised by the lawnmower, and Lorna hoped that meant he’d been wandering among humans for a while, because thought of acclimating a Norse deity to modern society was a little too much to deal with right now.

“Aunt Lorna, how’s Da? And are you going to fuck with our brains now?” Saoirse called. She and her tuxedo cat, Booger (so named because of the black dot on his left nostril), sat in a basket-chair beneath the rose arbor. The cats weren’t allowed outside without accompaniment, but Booger was such a little love bug that he didn't want to go far.

“Can I eat lunch first?” Lorna actually did have an idea, but it was not one she intended to even attempt on an empty stomach. “Your da’s resting, but he’s stable. We can go visit this evening, if he’s awake. Your Uncle Gerald’s said he’s out’v the woods, but at his age they want to hang onto him for a little while.”

She could not wholly say she was sorry, either. Thought of her family’s mortality had never been endurable, for all she knew where they would go before they crossed over. The original four Donovan siblings had been lost to one another for so very long; a second, more permanent separation was inevitable, but that didn't mean any of them wanted to dwell on it. Just now, she couldn't even consider it.

The kitchen was warm, and still redolent of cider and soup — gumbo, if she wasn’t mistaken. Sharley must have chased everyone else out, because she was the only person who could make actual gumbo, and she was not a cook who wanted any form of company. Even the cats were wise enough to stay out of her way.

“Gumbo’s still warm, though you might want to nuke it anyway.” The Sharley herself appeared out of the pantry like a blue-haired ghost; if Lorna hadn't been so used to it by now, she would have jumped. “I know what you want to do, with Saoirse and Lorna the Younger. Go for it.”

“And Taranis?” Lorna asked, with the barest quirk of an eyebrow.

Sharley did not actually roll her eyes, though she looked like she really wanted to. “He’ll teach her once you’re done. I haven’t had much chance to talk to him, but he’s more or less caught up with modern society. He never went back to sleep after the battle.”

“There’s a bloody mercy,” Lorna muttered. “I don't understand how he can mask his power so totally, but still stand out so much that it’s impossible to mistake him for a human. It makes me nervous, because how many other gods are out there, doing the same thing?”

The tiniest hint of a smirk curled Sharley’s mouth. “That,” she said, “would be telling.”

“Of course it would.” Food. Food had to come first, because telepathy on an empty stomach was an utterly terrible idea.

~

Once fed and rested, Lorna brought her two nieces into the sitting-room. Fortunately, the pair seemed to be getting on okay, even if they were understandably weirded out by one another. Two pairs of green eyes stared at her from the sofa, where they sat side-by-side. Grania sat in Ratiri’s armchair, silent and watchful.

“All right, the pair’v you,” Lorna said. “Caging the Blank is obviously a fucking terrible idea, but I might be able to stop it anyway, if you’re willing.”

“How?” her elder niece asked. The poor woman was still unused to spending time around telepaths both powerful and skilled enough to really influence her (or anyone else, for that matter).

“I want to see if I can set it so that if the Blank kicks in, you just pass out,” Lorna said. “I know it’s kind’v a lot to be asking, but it’s just a stopgap measure until I can come up with something less drastic. The two’v have got some strong Gifts, and you’ve both seen you could do someone a real injury if you weren’t lucky.”

The sisters shared a glance. The elder was both old and wise enough to understand how personally dangerous that could be, since they’d be at the mercy of whoever was around them if they went under. “It’d just what, knock us out as soon as the Blank stirs?” she asked.

“If it stirs and you can’t shove it down right off, yeah,” her aunt said. “It’d mean you ought to stay around the mountain for now, since everybody here knows everybody else and you wouldn’t need to worry about who you keeled over around.”

“Is it really going to stay a temporary thing?” Saoirse asked. “I mean, it won’t wind up having to be forever because you can’t find anything else?”

Ratiri had told her once that doctors never promised anything save that they would do their utmost — promising actual results was forbidden, because there was no guarantee you’d get a favorable outcome. Lorna had tried to take it to heart, but in this instance, she just couldn’t. 

“It won’t,” she said. “I’ll find something. _ We’ll _find something. We’re Donovans — if the universe doesn’t feel like cooperating, we just kick it in the teeth until it does.”

Again, the sisters looked at one another. Whatever their individual relationships with Pat might (or might not) be, in this they were bound together. “Okay,” Saoirse said. “Will it hurt?”

“It won’t hurt _ you _,” Lorna said, “though I might wind up with a hell’v a migraine. Let’s try it this evening, though — I don't want to be totally wiped out if Pat can have visitors, and Saoirse, I doubt you do, either.” As ever, she tried to speak so matter-of-factly about her brother that mother and daughter wouldn’t find it awkward.

In this instance, she needn’t have bothered. Any potential awkwardness was quite undone by Booger, who came tearing into the sitting-room, howling like a furry little banshee, and launched himself onto Saoirse’s lap. The family liked to joke that a headbutt from Booger was more like a punch to the face, but it wasn’t entirely a joke — the cat did just that, with such force it actually knocked Saoirse’s head back a little. How the animal didn't go around with a permanent concussion was anybody’s guess.

“Hello, Booger,” Lorna said; the cat probably didn't even hear her through his frenzy of purring. “On that note, can I take a look at both your minds? This’ll be a lot easier if you’re relaxed in advance.”

“As long as this cat doesn't have to go anywhere.”

~

_ “Herr von Rached, why did you believe me so easy, when I told you about the transmission shaft?” _

_ The question drew Von Rached’s attention from his textbook. Very often in the evening, he and Sigyn would sit and read in companionable silence, and indeed she was making her slow way through one of his old history tomes, dictionary by her side. The glow of that imitation Tiffany lamp cast her hair into a golden halo, as though she were some painted angel given life and form. _

_ He arched an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?” _

_ She bit the inside of her cheek. “You didn't question me,” she said. “You believed me even though I could not actually see the damage. I know that my listening sounds crazy to most people, but you have never said so.” _

_ There was enough uncertainty in her voice that he did not yet feel comfortable telling her the truth, but neither did that mean he had to wholly lie to her. “It is not crazy,” he said. “Perhaps this might sound strange, given I am a medical student, but I do not believe there is an easily explicable reason for absolutely everything. You are not the first I have known in possession of a gift that defies logical explanation as we currently know it.” _

_ Her eyes widened — they were such a pale, pellucid green, filled with surprise and an odd sort of hunger. “You have…?” _

_ “I cannot speak of it yet,” he said. “I would break a confidence in doing so, but yes, I have. It is not your gift, but it is a gift nonetheless. Such things are rare, and should be treasured.” _

_ To his mild annoyance, the tone in which he spoke that last word seemed to pass entirely over her head. Evidently, the seduction game as he played it was not played by the middle-class — to him, directness was gauche and desperate, though it was hardly going to put him off if he was himself propositioned. Everything was communicated through expression and intonation, and it was the only way Von Rached knew how to operate. He was, in theory at least, a gentleman. _

_ Sigyn, however, remained oblivious. From another, he might have expected it to be a facade, but she had spent the latter half of her adolescence — the years when most girls became interested in the idea of young men and courting — driving an ambulance, with little food, little sleep, and no time for notions of romance. Within her mind he saw no spark of understanding, and he was, for once in his life, somewhat at a loss. _

_ There were none he might go to for advice, either. He had no family, and no truly close friends. Though thought of anything more blatant was an anathema to him, he feared he’d need to resort to it — and he would need to pacify Frau Berger. He had no desire to engage another housekeeper, and Sigyn both liked and trusted the woman. Her goodwill was needed, and preferably not entirely forced by telepathy. _

_ “I wish I could explain what it is like,” Sigyn said. “I wish I had more German, but I could not explain this well even in Icelandic. Pappa said some things just...are.” _

_ “Your father,” Von Rached said, “was a wise man. I wish I could have met him.” It was the truth, too; he was curious as to what sort of man could have raised a girl like Sigyn. _

_ “I wish you could have, too.” There was a note of wistfulness in her voice that was unmistakable, even if Von Rached could not understand it in any way save the academic. When she shifted in her seat, she grimaced ever-so-slightly — an expression that deepened when she set the book aside. _

_ “ _ _ Fräulein, I do wish you would tell me when you are in pain.” Von Rached had shamelessly stolen a bottle of laudanum from the hospital, though he was sparing in doling it out to her — she did not need an addiction. There were times, however, that he knew aspirin would not be enough. “Why do you not?” _

_ “I...do not know, Herr von Rached.” Her expression was thoughtful when he brought her both bottle and spoon. “No, I think that I do. Drivers, nobody cares if we are in pain, so there is no use complaining. Maybe I did that too long.” _

_ “Perhaps you did, but this must cease, Fräulein.” The liquid looked nearly black in the spoon, and the smell of even a small amount of it was unpleasantly harsh. He knew that the taste was even worse, but she would appreciate it soon enough. “I undertook care of you, when I brought you into my home. That includes ensuring you are not in unnecessary pain.” _

_ Her pale hands were steady when she took the spoon — her fingers were still quite callused, though her blunt nails had smoothed out. Hands were not something Von Rached had hitherto given much consideration, but Sigyn’s had surprising strength for their seeming delicacy. They were also small, at least by comparison to his own — he often had to remind himself that she was rather tall for a woman. _

_ She did indeed grimace when she took the medicine, and chased it with a swig of tea. “Thank you, Herr von Rached.” _

_ Her fingers brushed his when she returned the spoon — it was so brief he scarcely had time to register it — but her eyes widened a fraction, and her mind wheeled. She might be unaware of his interest, but it would seem that she was not without her own. _

_ Von Rached said nothing of it, for if he was reasonably certain of anything, it was that she would never act on what curiosity or attraction she had. If she lost her reputation, she would have nothing at all, and that was not her only consideration. Their social gulf really was unfortunately vast; even with her pension, their financial disparity was also very large. Even she had no idea _ how _ large, but her guess was likely to be lower than the actual figure. His mother might have been a terrible human being, but no one accused her of managing finances poorly. _

She fears she has no future here_ , he thought, even as he rose to put the laudanum in its rightful place. It was an entirely reasonable fear, too. Their society might relatively looser stands than other nations, but Sigyn was not German. He couldn’t afford to assume Iceland possessed the same cultural mores. _

_ And yet, that single touch. He was always very careful not to touch her skin directly, when he carried her up the stairs in the evening — he’d been quite conscientious about that, because he was sure she would not trust him otherwise. He’d had to show her a sort of distant friendliness, if she was ever going to feel secure. _

And what of the power imbalance? _ The thought was not a welcome one, but he could hardly ignore it. Whether she realized it or not, he held all the metaphorical cards, and for some reason, he was loath to use them. _

_ “I think I should like to sleep early, Herr von Rached.” Her voice was so clear and even that he was honestly impressed — especially given the turmoil that roiled in her mind. _

_ “Of course,” he said, in as soothing a manner as he was able to summon. “Bring your book with you; should you wake and have trouble returning to sleep, reading it might aid you.” _

_ Her face was a mask of serenity, but was not entirely perfect. Still, he said nothing of it; if she wished to believe him oblivious, he could humor her, for now. Some things could not be rushed. _

_ Sigyn made her way to the stairs on her crutches — he carried the book, and only returned it to once he needed to carry her instead. The flight was neither long nor tall, but he went as slowly as he could without notice or comment. She smelled faintly of roses and soap; it was a simple combination, but one he could appreciate. _

_ Once atop the landing, he set her on her feet before retrieving her crutches. The rest she could handle alone, and Von Rached let her do it, so that he would not seem to hover. Still her hair all but glowed beneath the overhead light, but her expression held. _

_ “Good night, Herr von Rached,” she said, solemn and firm. “Thank you for helping me.” _

_ “It is the least I can do, Fräulein. Rest well.” _

_ He turned, and began descending the stairs until he heard the door to her room shut. It would be wise to linger, in case something went wrong and she needed some manner of assistance. _

Rest well indeed,_ he thought, once he was certain she arrived at her bed without incident. _

~

_ Sigyn sat on her bed, and wondered what she was going to do. In the warmth and safety of this room, she at least had the space to consider. _

Thank God he didn't notice._ She’d slipped there, for just a moment, but it appeared to have passed right over Herr von Rached’s head. That couldn’t be allowed to happen again, because she would be utterly mortified if he ever knew her thoughts had strayed, however idly, in that direction. _

_ Struggling out of her trousers was something of a chore, but she managed it. Yes, she would be mortified if he ever _ knew, _ but she was not going to be ashamed to have such thoughts in private. Most women, she was sure, would daydream in such a situation — cared for and attended to by an attractive man who was also a perfect gentleman. Any woman who would claim otherwise was either lying, or a sapphist. _

_ In this, Sigyn had benefited from being raised by a single father. Her pappa hadn't had any idea that girls were meant to be educated about intimate matters couched in terms of shame and sin, so he had not — he’d educated her as he would have a son, which included a belief that such considerations were thoroughly natural, though for the sake of decency should remain private. _

_ Thus, now that she was actually _ in _ private, she permitted herself to acknowledge all the admiration she kept in total check when actually in his presence. He really was rather handsome; she had originally thought him somewhere in his early twenties, and his voice was such that she could have happily sat and listened to him read the schedule of a city tram. It certainly loaned automotive terms a sort of grace and class she would not have imagined on her own. _

And such a gentleman._ It took her a moment to trade her soft shirt for an equally soft nightdress, but that wasn’t enough to distract her. He’d been entirely patient with her initial doubt of his intentions, and had not seemed at all insulted by them. He’d gifted her such nice clothing, ensured she had good food and medicine — at first, he had seemed too good to be true. His interest in automobiles had proven to be genuine, though she still felt that he was not benefiting from this arrangement nearly as much as she was. Yes, he could lord his knowledge over his friends, but that seemed to her like insufficient reward for all he was giving her. Comfort, safety, education, and he wanted so little in return...didn't he? _

_ There had been something in his expression, when he spoke of another person with an inexplicable gift — something she couldn’t name. Was that really why he had taken her in? Did his motives even really matter? _

_ Even if they did, there was nothing she could really do about it right now. He was kind and handsome and one of the most intelligent people Sigyn had ever met in her life, and a daydream about a dance and a fancy party was hardly going to hurt. _


	12. Chapter Twelve

As Lorna had expected, this did, in fact, suck.

She started with Saoirse, as Saoirse was the one who was currently a greater hazard. She also had a far better grasp of Saoirse’s mind than of Lorna the Younger’s, which should, in theory at least, make this less difficult.

In theory.

Not being stupid, she’d taken Saoirse out into the back garden, and they sat now in the red light of sunset. Taranis lurked at the edge of the lawn, just in case; Lorna still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him, but she was glad enough of his presence. Especially once she’d roused Saoirse’s Blank. Behind her frigid, inhuman eyes danced phantom lightning — caged lightning. 

The sight of it stopped Lorna cold. _What the hell is this? _she thought, incredulous. _This _was new — unless she was very much mistaken, the Blank was holding it. _Bloody Jesus, that thing’s got actual control. Since when can it do that? _It certainly hadn't been able to that morning — somehow, in the intervening hours, it had evolved. It had _learned_.

During her horrible tenure in the Institute, Lorna had been forced to gain control of her Blank. It had been nothing but a liability for Von Rached to exploit, so she’d found a way to master it, but it was exactly that — mastery. She’d used it, but she most certainly had not taught it anything. A thing without sentience could be taught nothing, and until she gained some control over it, the thing that lived behind her eyes had always been nearly mindless rage. So it had been for Saoirse...until now.

Lorna stared at it, but for the first time there was something in it capable of staring back. It was so rudimentary that it had no discernible thoughts of its own — there was nothing for her to read or touch, but there was a type of awareness to it that simply should not have been possible. _How? _

Unease stirred in Lorna’s mind, even as she kept a firm grip on her niece’s Blank. Had whoever — whatever — tried to cage the thing somehow done more than they intended? Had it been given instinct, if not actual awareness?

_Oh, _Lorna thought, _shit._

Her incredulity shifted to stunned anxiety, because if there was one thing she had always done, it was believe the evidence of her own eyes. However improbable — impossible — a thing might be, she wouldn’t discount it once she’d actually seen it. No, this shouldn't be possible, but here it unquestionably was, plain as day before her.

Still the lightning danced behind Saoirse’s glassy green eyes, and Lorna rallied. This bore examination, and a lot of it, but for now she had a job to do. She didn't dare try to dismantle what was left of the failed mental cage, but neither would she in any way attempt to repair it. Instead she placed the very simplest of switches into her niece’s mind, light and careful.

_Taranis, can you read minds?_

A flicker of surprise registered in his thoughts. _Not as you do, but yes, in a way._

_Can you see what I see? _

_Yes. I like it not, but I see it, and I know now I did well to come here._

Lorna forced Saoirse’s Blank back into the depths of her mind, and sent her inside to tap her elder sister. If Lorna the Younger had this…

Mercifully, it would seem she did not. When Lorna met her Blank, it was, for lack of a better term, as it ought to be; there was nothing even remotely like a nascent attempt at consciousness. 

_Thank the Lady for small bloody favors. I couldn’t handle it if they were both like that. _She’d thank the Lady literally, if she had a chance — right after she asked a boatload of questions.

_~_

_As had become custom, Von Rached knocked on Sigyn’s door early the next morning. She was still dependent upon him to descend the staircase, and never yet had she failed to be dressed, presentable, and ready. Not until today. _

_He knocked again, and still received no response. He could hardly go barging into her room — he had no desire to deal with Frau Berger if he did — and yet lack of an answer was hardly encouraging. Instead he reached out for her mind, and...oh._

_Well. This was unfortunate._

_Today was the anniversary of her father’s death, and the depth of the grief that hit him was somewhat astonishing in its intensity. It was just as well that none could see him, because he actually found himself leaning against the wall for support._

_Von Rached was no stranger to the grief of others, although he found the emotion entirely alien. It had never been quite like_ this, _however; woven through the pain that squeezed at Sigyn’s heart was a crushing level of hopelessness he would never have suspected of her. It weighed upon her like a lead blanket, slumping her shoulders as it pressed her toward the floor._

_There was fear in it, too, mixed into that terrible cocktail of emotion — fear for the future, for what awaited when her leg healed. Her intention to return to Iceland was not new to him, but now it carried with it the depressing acknowledgement that she had nothing and no one there now._

_“Fräulein,” he tried. Oh good grief, did he really hear sniffling on the other side of that door?_

_For once in his life, utter indecision gripped him. Von Rached had absolutely no idea what to do with a weeping woman, but it would surely serve him well to work out how at this moment._ And yet you have no means of aping empathy_, he thought, rather sourly. _

_Her voice, thick with tears, issued through the door. “I am not well, Herr von Rached.”_

That, _he thought_, is patently obvious. _He had wondered, far more than once, why people allowed themselves the liability of emotion, until he realized that most were slaves to theirs. Sigyn, on the whole, seemed far more practical, but grief did strange, inexplicable things._

_“Fräulein. Sigyn. I can hear you weeping. Whatever the cause, there is no shame in it. May I come in, or would you be willing to step out here?”_

_There was a pause so long that he wondered if she would respond at all, but eventually she said, “Please come in.” It was a mark of how much she trusted him, and that was...strange. Von Rached would certainly have hoped he’d proven himself to her by now, but evidently he had to a degree he had not expected._

_In he went, and found that she was at least properly dressed. He was not at all surprised that she didn't look at him at first, and he did not demand that she do so. Her shoulders shook with sobs that were unnervingly quiet, and he wondered anew just what he was meant to do about it. _

_When she finally did look at him, her face was streaked with tears, her eyes red-rimmed. Why did people weep? What did it accomplish? At least his expression must have been appropriate, for her own did not falter._

_“I am sorry,” she said. “It is...Pappa died today, three years ago.”_

_“And you have had no opportunity to properly mourn him,” Von Rached said. “Not until now. Fräulein, no one is going to fault you for grieving the loss of your father. Few people can face such a thing with total equanimity.” _

_Something like relief entered her green eyes, and he searched his memory for anyone he might have witnessed actually displaying empathy._

_“It feels...silly,” she said. “Wasteful.”_

_Something Heinrich had once said floated to the surface of Von Rached’s mind — something actually worth parroting. The fact that doing so was rank hypocrisy was not about to stop him. “Fräulein, our emotions are what make us human. Never feel ashamed of them.”_

_Fortunately, this seemed to grow easier the longer he went on. A brush of her mind told him that she believed him — or that she wanted to, at least. She neither protested nor tensed when he sat beside her, though he at first hesitated to draw her closer. Was that appropriate? Likely not, but he risked it anyway. Her shoulders were still too bony, but that would surely alter with time, and more proper meals._

_“Are your parents living, Herr von Rached?” It was quite a personal question, and he doubted she would have asked it had her emotions not been so fraught._

_“No,” he said. “My father died when I was very young, and my mother not long before I began my medical training.” That was not entirely true; in truth, he had no idea what had become of his father, as the man had vanished some months before his son’s birth. Von Rached’s mother had indeed died when he said she had, but he was hardly going to tell Sigyn he’d killed her. _

_“I am sorry,” Sigyn sniffled, flushing with embarrassment._

_“Don't be,” he said. The words surprised even him. “My mother was not like your father, Sigyn. She was cold and distant, and I did not know her well enough to mourn her passing. It is unfair you are bereaved so young, but the depth of your mourning speaks to how much you loved him.”_

_Yes, this really_ was_ somewhat easier, though he was still not entirely certain what he was doing. She seemed fragile as glass. He must have been on the right track, however, for a small measure of her sorrow lifted. How much this relieved him was not a fact he wished to examine, so he would not._

~

Lorna took Saoirse to visit Pat the next day, with Siobhan in tow. Mick had called down with quite an encouraging progress report, and indeed they found Pat awake, alert, and grouchy.

“I don't know why I’ve got to stay here another day,” he grumbled. “Healer says I’m out’v any danger, and I’d rather be back in my own bed.”

Lorna flicked him between the eyes. “Because you had a bloody heart attack, that’s why. You’re not exactly a young man anymore, and your youth was just as misspent as mine. ‘Out’v danger’ does not equal ‘one hundred percent recovered.’”

He glowered at her, but didn't actually protest. “Wish I had something to do,” he said instead. “I’m awake enough to be bored.” Pat was used to spending the better part of his days outdoors, unless the weather was too shit to even leave the house. 

“That just means you’re getting healthy,” Saoirse said. “Keep doing that. I don't want to have to zap you back to life like Frankenstein.” Her tone said quite plainly that she would do exactly that, if necessary.

He sighed, but some of the annoyance left his expression as he ruffled her hair. “I can’t imagine that’d be any fun for either’v us, would it?”

“Nope. You’re the only da I’ve got, so you’d better be around a long, long time.”

Siobhan fished a rather worn paperback out of her messenger bag — no small, useless handbags for her, thank you very much. “Here, I brought you a thing.” It was a copy of _Good Omens, _which was a favorite of all the Donovans. “Don't laugh yourself into another heart attack.”

“Ha-bloody-ha.”

Looking at him, Lorna knew there was no way she could tell him what she’d found in Saoirse’s mind — not yet. The last thing he needed was more stress. _Besides, _she thought, a touch grimly, _even I don't know what it is exactly, other than something that ought to be impossible._

_~_

Von Rached did not dare look into little Saoirse’s mind until both Lorna and her cousins were gone, and she was left only with her tutor — her tutor, who took her out to the mountain and its golden sunshine. Von Rached really did not know what to make of this ‘Taranis’, who was so blatantly inhuman it was a wonder no one else seemed to notice.

Any curiosity Von Rached might have felt about him dissipated like so much smoke after a careful inspection of Saoirse’s mind. It was just as well none could see him, for he was certain he actually gaped for a moment.

_What _was this? _How _was this? He had touched Lorna’s Blank, in a manner of speaking, in the Institute — yes, it had held its own form of awareness, after a fashion, but it was nowhere near a truly sapient entity. Neither was Saoirse’s — but it was a step closer than it had been. That it could learn implied a level of sentience he had never witnessed in Lorna’s.

He might have been pleased by it...had he done it on purpose. As he had not, a frisson of something very like worry entered his mind. Lorna’s switch, inelegant though it was, would serve in the short-term, but was not a permanent solution.

_Donovans, _he thought, a touch sourly. Trust one to manage the seemingly impossible — even subconsciously, they refused to do anything remotely logical.

_And what are you going to do about it? _The thought did not seem entirely his own, somehow.

What, indeed. The wisest course of action was something he had never yet done, in life or in death: ask another for advice.

~

When Saoirse and Taranis went out into the forest, Sharley went with them. She’d seen what Lorna saw, albeit in a different manner, and she wanted to know where it — and they — were going.

It was kind of odd, really. Sharley rarely spent much time around other gods who weren’t her father, Jary, or Tanya, but she knew of them, and they of her. They also tended to be leery of her, but not Taranis. He was so big, cheerful, and ginger that she kept expecting him to sound Irish, not vaguely, indefinably Norse, and she’d never seen an ancient god so unfazed by the world of modern humanity. Even Odin wasn’t so familiar with it all, or at least he hadn't been the last time Sharley ran into him. (Amusingly, it had been in Iceland, where seemingly everyone knew who he was and nobody said a word.)

She could see the lightning beneath Taranis’ skin (what little of it was even visible), even if she strongly doubted anyone human could. Sometimes she wondered just what it was humans saw, because her vision hadn't been normal even when she’d been one herself.

_Are you gonna stick around a while? _she asked, as they made their slow way toward the summit. The trails were relatively gentle, with few areas of many switchbacks; it made the hike longer, but a good deal more pleasant.

_I have little choice, my Lady. This young one has greater access to power than she could hope to understand as of yet, and that will only grow with time. Two thousand years ago, she would have been my acolyte. In all my years, I have only known three others of such strength._

Sharley’s eyebrows rose. _Her family tends to be powerful, _she said, and wished, quite a lot, that she knew _why_. If there was any rhyme or reason behind who was strong and who was weak, she was unaware of it, and she didn't think anyone else was, either. The Lady might be, but if so, she was keeping it to herself.

Saoirse zoomed on ahead, through dappled patches of sun and shadow. It was easy to forget the girl was seventeen — she was short and wiry like all the Donovans, and her face remained rather childlike. She still spoke and acted like a much younger girl — she’d never dated nor expressed any wish to, and seemed thoroughly disinterested in both boys and other girls. Pat had wondered if it was a side-effect of spending so much time around her younger cousins, but Sharley suspected she was simply asexual. It took one to recognize one — Alan, Marty’s father, had been a serious aberration for Sharley, and they’d had a sex life for his sake.

Considering the Blank ran in the family, it was perhaps just as well. In several potentialities, she adopted a child as an adult, but in none of them did she wish for a biological kid. It was too early to tell with Mairead and Jerry, but they were young enough yet that there was no point in worrying.

Thus her mind wandered until they reached the summit, bare of trees and awash in sunlight. Here there was only meadow, currently carpeted in a brilliant array of wildflowers.

"Now, young Saoirse." Taranis' voice was quite serious. "You possess a gift and a responsibility that few will ever understand. It will only grow with time. To earth it must become second nature to you."

_"This oughtta get interesting," _Jimmy muttered.

~

"Lady, I do not know what to do."

The admission was not so wrenching as Von Rached might have expected. Once upon a time, he could not have made it — once upon a time, he would never have acknowledged it, even to himself. 

At first there came no answer; he stood alone in the forest that surrounded his home. All around him, birdsong filled the trees, still so strange after he’d spent so long in silence. Cuckoos, the soft trill of turtle doves, even the harsh caw of a distant raven — it was like a strange form of music. He waited patiently in the cool shade, while the cat prowled the undergrowth.

“I know what it must cost you to admit that.”

He turned, and found her watching him. “In truth, not so much as it might once have,” he said dryly, “but no, it is not easy. Perhaps it never will be.” Von Rached had spent his entire life knowing, if not _everything_, at least more than those around him. Rarely had he been stymied for long — and rarely had he made mistakes. Not until the Institute. Yes, it galled somewhat, but such was...life. So to speak.

The Lady’s dark eyes held his. “You have altered Saoirse’s Blank,” she said gently, “but not so much as Lorna believes. What do you recall of hers?”

What _did _he recall of hers? “I did not study it as I ought to have,” he admitted. “It seemed to hold an awareness. I thought I had no need to hurry, for I did not anticipate Lorna would ever be able to shut me out of her mind.” He never let himself think on just why she had been able to do that — his own accursed actions that led to that ability. He had enough guilt to deal with as it was.

The Lady’s expression was wholly unreadable. “I will grant you something,” she said, “so that you might better understand.”

She held out one strong brown hand, and after the barest trace of hesitation, Von Rached took it. What she intended, he had no idea.

_It was a misty, chilly, miserable day, and the Donovans Four, blanket-bundled, sat in a row with their backs to the radiator. Its warmth was anemic, but it was better than nothing — certainly better than either bedroom, both of which might as well have been meat-lockers._

_They were safe enough for now, given Da was gone; whether he was at the pub or some half-arsed attempt at a job was anyone’s guess, but it didn't really matter. He wasn’t home, and Mam was actually making breakfast — proper breakfast, sausage and eggs the quartet had lifted from the local VG. Mam never asked where they got half the things they brought home, and Lorna suspected she didn't want to know._

_The scent of frying sausage was wonderful; it overlay, for now, the odor of stale cigarettes, cheap whiskey, and general sourness that had permeated the home as long as Lorna could remember. She had no name for the sourness, and none of her siblings did, either — it was something unique to their house, its genesis lurking somewhere beneath the threadbare carpet. Shiv was convinced it was some kind of exotic mold found nowhere else in the world. Lorna neither knew nor cared; unpleasant though it was, it was the smell of home._

_She picked at a bit of frayed, plastic thread that had come loose from the edges of a hole in the carpet. What the original color had been was a mystery, because fifteen years’ worth of stains had turned it into a strange, blobby patchwork in shades of brown and grey, dotted all over with penny-sized burns. Da had a nasty habit of passing out on the sofa with a lit fag in his hand, and Lorna was fairly sure that one day he’d burn the house down like that. She could only hope he’d not wake up when it happened._

_Mam hummed a little as she cooked, and Lorna watched her curiously. Like them, Mam rarely dared make noise when Da was home — she was a gaunt ginger ghost, pale and hollow-eyed, but at times there were glimpses of who she maybe ought to have been. Who she might actually be, if only Da would do them all a favor and drop dead._

You could make sure of that, you know.

_The thought had crossed Lorna’s mind so often it had left grooves. Yes, she could indeed make sure of that, and on one exceptionally dark night, she very nearly had. It was so, so tempting, but not tempting enough to turn her into a murderer at ten years old. The cleaver had been huge in her tiny hand, which had not shaken as she regarded the useless lump of humanity that was theoretically her father._

No_, she countered._ No, that’s not me.

_The answering thought was hard and ice-cold: _Yet.

_She shook herself. Right now there was sausage, there was her Mam acting like an actual mam, and her siblings all in a row. They sat as they always did, with Pat on one end and her on the other, with Shiv ready to grab Mick and run if she had to. It was instinct, and it had served them well so far._

_“Come on over here, the lot’v you.” Mam’s voice was soft, and her accent softer; she hadn't grown up in Dublin, though she never spoke of her childhood. “Come on and get this while it’s hot.”_

_They needed no second urging. In this house, you snatched your food and you ate it in a hurry, unless some of it could be saved for later. Whatever was left would get hidden in an ancient plastic shopping bag beneath Lorna or Shiv’s mattress._

_The sausages were greasy, and so hot it burned their fingers, but there was no point in bothering with utensils if you didn't need them. Meals were an uncertainty in the Donovan household, and hot meals even more so. There wasn’t really time to savor._

_For some reason, Mam always looked terribly sad when they fell on their food like wolves. None of them understood it, and dismissed it as one of the many incomprehensible vagaries of adults in general, and their mother in particular._

_Scrambled eggs did need forks, but they still gobbled their portion — and it was a good thing they did, because the telltale creak of the porch heralded the arrival of their much-hated father._

_He came in stinking so badly of booze that the reek reached the kitchen long before he did, red-eyed, his complexion an odd but familiar shade of grey. Da wasn’t a large man — Mam was actually a touch taller — but he was so much bigger than his children that he didn't need to be in order to be a threat. Lorna hated that they all looked so much like him, though not nearly so much as she hated the man himself._

_As ever, all of them tensed. A trace of sick, liquid fear traveled through Lorna’s gut — not for herself, but for her mam. For Pat, the eejit, who insisted on taking the brunt of their father’s wrath no matter what anyone said to him._

_“Save me any’v that?” he asked. He might have been half off his face, but his hazel eyes were sharp as knives, assessing and searching for any sign of weakness._

_In point of fact, nobody had saved any for him; the last portion should have been their mam’s, but of course the wretched woman would give it over to this worthless gobshite without a word of protest. Why?_ Why? _Sometimes Lorna wanted to shake her mother, to scream until something like sense pierced whatever fog shrouded Mam’s mind. What little light had entered her blue, blue eyes always went out when Da came home, and yet she never just fucking_ left.

_“Of course, Niall.” Mam’s voice was quiet with defeat._

_A surge of molten rage passed through Lorna, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes._ Jesus fuck, Mam, WHY?! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS BLOODY DO THIS? _Someday, the words would actually leave her throat, but for now she was silent, while loathing seethed and bubbled within her mind like some kind of boiling poison._

_Da said nothing at first, but something ugly and cruel passed over his expression, so minute that somebody less hyper-aware than his daughter wouldn’t have caught it. “No you didn't,” he said. “You were going to eat that all, and leave a working man to starve.”_

_Lorna wasn’t quite sure who snorted at that, but somebody did, and it wasn’t her. _Working man, my arse,_ she thought. _Working at ruining your liver, maybe. 

_For such a small, ossified man, her father could move remarkably fast — he was across the kitchen with jarring speed, but before his hand could connect with his wife’s face, Lorna plowed into him like the world’s tiniest rugby player. She was small enough that the crown of her head barely reached his ribs, but that just meant his stomach bore the brunt of the impact. _

_Had he been sober, it might have done fuck-all; as it was, it sent him staggering back out of the kitchen. This time, his slap actually landed, so hard with the side of Lorna’s head that for the briefest of moments, dark stars bloomed behind her eyes. Some dim part of her registered the pain, but in that instant the white heat of her wrath kept it a distant irrelevance._

_He hit her again, harder — hard enough to drive her backward, and nearly knock her off her feet. It only fed the hatred-laced fury that surged through her veins, through her mind with all the force and heat of magma. Mam might not have a spine, but Lorna bloody well did — oh, she’d pay for this later, but she didn't care. Not now, when the resignation of her mother’s voice still rang in her ears. _

Fuck you and the horse you fucked in on, you walking skip fire._ The thoughts were there, and mostly in order, but all that left her throat was a snarl that bordered on inhuman. Her ears would not make sense of whatever idiocy spewing from her da’s mouth, because it was as irrelevant as he was. Eyes sharpened by rage bent on his face with a malice so intense it felt as though it might rend her apart._

_So fixated was she that she didn't — couldn’t — dodge the next thing that connected. It wasn’t his hand, it was the heavy glass ashtray that sat atop the scratched and ancient kitchen table, and it struck her temple with such force that it blinded her for half a breath. Ash rained down through her hair, and with it the warm wetness of blood. _That_ hurt, so much so that it lanced down her neck even as it exploded through her head._

_She faltered one step, then two; her vision dimmed to a faded grey as consciousness fought and barely won. Her head throbbed in time with the thunder of her pulse, and it sent nausea churning in her stomach._

_Her next uneven, agonized breath sent a blessed chill into her veins. It woke now, the thing behind her eyes, a leviathan dormant no more. Lorna herself never remembered what it did when it stirred, but _it_ never forgot. Its malign, proto-awareness never forgot a thing._

_Lorna — and everyone else — assumed the Blank was a form of mindless rage so intense there was no room for rationality, but that was not quite accurate. The Blank passed through the valley of wrath, into some strange serenity on the other side. Unlike Lorna, it was, in an odd way, at peace — at peace with what it meant to do, untroubled by things like guilt or hesitance. It saw the fear that rose in her father’s eyes, an echo of the terror he’d felt of his own green-eyed father. It wasn't rational — not with how tiny his daughter was, how much weaker — but it was a relic of which he would likely never be rid._

_The Blank could take no satisfaction in it, for the Blank took no satisfaction in anything. He froze, if only for an instant, and that was enough for it._

_It had no weapon near to hand save the ashtray, but that would work. Her da was fast, but it was faster; the ashtray was honestly too big for her small hands, but no matter. It was only in them for a moment before the Blank hurled it at his face with the speed of a striking snake._

_Had he been sober, he likely could have dodged, or at least fended it off. He was very far from sober, however, which meant the ashtray made full contact with his face. The Blank was not really much stronger than Lorna herself, but the thing was heavy enough to make up for the relative lack of force. Something went _snap_, but it was scarcely audible over his sudden bellow. _

_There was blood — so much blood — but the Blank watched it with dispassion. It would dye the carpet, as it had several times and several places before now, and there it would stay, testament to Niall Donovan’s inability to learn._

_It never spoke, the Blank, for it didn't need to; all it did was watch. That stare seemed to be enough, and indeed Lorna’s hapless father half-walked, half-stumbled out into the misty morning._

_Someday, when the opportunity came, the Blank would kill him. Someday, when the time was right and the circumstances such that he would stand no chance of defending himself. Until then, it abided._

“It has always known more than Lorna ever gave it credit for,” the Lady said. “Saoirse’s could not learn until you altered it, but Lorna’s could. Lorna’s did, else she would never have gained control of it in the Institute.”

“I’ve suspected that the thing is, perhaps, some form of proto-Stranger,” Von Rached said. It had been long since he had witnessed any of Lorna’s memories, from within or without, and he wondered anew what on Earth he had been thinking when he’d believed he could ever turn her to him. She was damaged in a way he could not have hoped to heal, even if he had bothered trying. “It would seem as though I am more right than I knew.”

“You are,” the Lady said, “and yet you are not. Things will, perhaps, soon have greater clarity.”

“How is any of this supposed to aid my daughter?” he asked. “I suppose I ought to count it a mercy my children did not inherit this thing.”

The Lady’s next words stunned him. “They would have,” she said, “had they not been yours. There is little enough that they might thank you for, but they do owe you that much.”

For once, he was actually surprised into momentary speechlessness, and in that moment she disappeared.

No sooner had she vanished than the cat crept out of the ferns, a rodent in its mouth. At least with its mouth full, it could not speak.

“If I find any rodent bits anywhere in the flat, it will go very hard with you,” he warned.

~

_Von Rached went to sleep that night feeling strangely, inexplicably troubled._

_He found himself not in the Garden, as he might have expected; this place did not truly seem to be a _place _at all. There was a floor beneath his feet, and light from no discernible source, but that was the most he could say — potential walls or ceiling were lost in shadow. Disappointing, really._

_Since he didn't know what else to do, he walked. The light followed him, but revealed no details. _

_Not until he reached her. No, until he reached _it.

_At first, he thought it was Lorna, or some projection of her, seated lotus-style within the small area of illumination. The figure was dressed simply, in jeans and an oversized flannel shirt, hair in a long braid that coiled behind her on the floor. He knew that it could not be Lorna, however, as soon as the eyes opened — they were not green but black, iris wholly swallowed by pupil. They stared into the nothingness with no sign of animation, and did not appear to register his approach at all. Its face wore no expression whatsoever — it was, in point of fact, blank._

_Well._

_“Are you the Blank?” he asked. The voice in which he spoke was not his own — it was as generically American as possible, and quite thoroughly unremarkable._

_The thing heard him, at least; those black eyes sought the direction of this voice that was not his. It still wore no actual expression, even when he sat before it, and he realized that it could not see him — but awareness sparked in its eyes. _

_It did not answer right away; a solid thirty seconds elapsed before it said, “Yes.” That single word was flat, inflectionless, and yet there was a peculiarly childlike timbre to it._

_“Lorna says that you sleep.”_

_Another pause. “Yes.”_

_What a peculiar sort of dream this was. The Blank within little Saoirse’s mind had had only the barest of forms — it was an entity, nebulous, not even humanoid. It most certainly was not some manifestation of her physical form — it was true that he’d had little chance to inspect Lorna’s, but hers had not been, either._

_“Do you exist to protect Lorna?” Sharley’s Stranger had existed to protect her, even if it occasionally got both of them in trouble through poor judgment. It, however, had been its own unique, fully formed consciousness._

_The figure blinked. “No.”_

_Von Rached quirked an eyebrow. “Then what is the purpose of you?”_

_The figure’s brow furrowed in vague confusion — it was faint, but at least it was an actual expression._

_“What is your function?” he tried._

_This only deepened the thing’s confusion. “Purpose? Function?” Its strange voice was even more childlike as it repeated the words without any trace of comprehension._

_He struggled to keep his mounting exasperation from his tone. “If there is no point to you, why do you exist?” _

_A blink. “Why do you?” Still there was no rancor; the thing was genuinely puzzled._

_“Because I was born,” he said dryly. “My parents somehow managed to consummate their marriage, and here I am. You have no such origin.”_

_“Yes.”_

_Von Rached wondered if this was his mind’s way of punishing him, though for what, he wasn’t sure. “You are trying to tell me that you were born as well?”_

_“Lorna was born.”_

_“Are you an intrinsic part of Lorna, or are you your own entity?”_

_“Yes.”_

_He massaged his temples. Yes, he was being punished. “Why are you...calm? You are a creature of rage and hatred, if I might truly call you a ‘creature’ at all, yet here you sit with apparent serenity.”_

_The thing shut its eyes; when they opened, they were no longer black, but Lorna’s alarming green. Even yet they held no recognition, however — no sign that they saw anything at all. “I sleep,” it said. “I dream. When I wake, Lorna sends me back to sleep.”_

_This was not really news, but he still did not know how to use it. Sharley had managed to integrate her other half, but he remained convinced that the Blank was nowhere near as fully-formed a consciousness as the Stranger had been — no matter what this dream might tell him._

I cannot traumatize the woman and the girl, _he thought. _That which gave Lorna such strength of mind could not be duplicated even were I able. And yet, what other recourse have I? _Their minds could not rise to challenges that weren't set, after all, but nobody else was going to do anything that might traumatize them, either. _And how can a person grow without it?

_The thought struck him like a brick, because only now did Von Rached realize that he truly did not know. He had no answers, for was it not trauma that had forced change upon him? Right up until nearly the end, he’d actively fought the very concept of personal growth, but it had happened whether he liked it or not, and each and every step of it had been beaten into him — physically, mentally, or both._

Mater beat me, until she came to fear me. I thought my self-control was iron until Sigyn. I made myself arbiter of all around me, until I met Lorna — she was the beginning of the end for me, though I was too great a fool to see it.

_He stared at her, this dream-Lorna, this Blank. She had recovered from what he did to her in the Institute, but _he _hadn't — not until death took him, and he crossed the pale forest. Never had he regained his old, long-held detachment, try though he had. The twins had been the nail in the coffin of his feeble efforts, but Von Rached could not tell himself that the six years between the fall of the Institute and his abduction of them had brought him anything remotely approximating the lost, icy detachment of his will. Meeting Lorna again had merely hammered home the fact that not only had he never regained his once-valued indifference to the rest of humanity, he was never getting it back. So much time with her had been suffering of a very different sort, for it had confronted him, at every turn, with both the damage he had wrought and all that he would never have. Never _could _have had._

You’re a monster, _she’d said, on the last day of his life, _but...that’s not all you are, now.

_He had not even tried to gainsay her, for by then he had come to accept it. Now he could not even claim to be a monster — arrogant, yes, and selfish, but monster no longer. Now, he sat before this not-Lorna, with her glassy, tranquil green eyes, and realized just how unequipped he was for the task he had undertaken. How could he ever have thought this would be straightforward? How had he convinced himself that he had even the slightest hope of doing for them what he had never learned to do himself?_

_Perhaps he should not have been so quick to curse his boredom._


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Frustration ate at Mairead like some kind of gangrene. She knew already that nobody was going to let her into Saoirse’s head — they’d say she was too young, too inexperienced, blah, blah, blah. The fact that they’d be right on both counts didn't mean Mairead had to like it.

What did that _ leave _, though? She was entirely certain somebody had been fucking around in her cousin’s head, just as she was sure someone had tried to get into her own. There wasn’t a human alive who could have managed that, and so far as she knew, the world of the supernatural did not actually extend to ghosts.

_ It _ does _ extend to gods, though. _ The thought coiled through her mind as she dodged her way through the crowded DMA corridors, her backpack heavy with its cargo of textbooks. _ Taranis is evidence enough of that. _Why ‘Taranis’ even bothered with even a poor attempt at concealing his identity, she didn't know, but so far everyone seemed to be rolling with it. Could another deity be fucking with them? She had no idea which one would want to, or why, but at least it seemed remotely plausible — which was more than she could say for any other potentiality.

No, she couldn't get into Saoirse’s head, but Saoirse was not the only Blank-afflicted Donovan. Mairead barely knew her elder cousin, but it was possible Mam wasn’t watching her too closely — not when she had Saoirse to deal with, and Lorna the Younger had the switch that would trip if her own Blank tried to stir itself.

When Mairead reached the cafeteria, the line was so long that she had plenty of time to stand and ponder, heedless of the noise around her. Not even the (admittedly tantalizing) scent of gumbo was enough to distract her.

Reading her cousin’s mind was and would remain a no-go. There was just no way she could ever justify it, and there was no point in asking for permission when she’d just get told ‘no.’ She needed a third option — one that wouldn’t violate any of Mam’s rules.

It was possible, she knew, to set a trap in someone’s mind — Doctor Man had done it to Jameson, for all the good it wound up doing him. The problem with that was twofold: not only did she have no idea how to actually do it, there would be no hiding it from Mam even if she did.

_ So be the trap. Go lurk like a lurking thing tonight, once everyone’s gone to bed. Even Mam can’t monitor everything in her sleep. _

It was a decent idea. At any rate, it was the only even half-ass viable idea Mairead actually had at that moment. There was every possibility Mam had set her own trap, in which case..._ In which case, be fucking careful, because I really don't want to have to explain myself if I get caught. _

_ ~ _

Lightning danced in little Saoirse’s eyes, and Taranis regarded her carefully. Within her brain, a storm brewed, but not a whit of it spilled over into the physical world. The breeze that stirred her black hair was purely natural, the brilliance of the afternoon sun screened only by the boughs above them. She had taken their earliest lesson to heart; her mounting, internal hurricane remained precisely that.

Taranis had very rarely taken on human acolytes, even at the height of his power and influence. There were few enough who needed his aid, for the Gifted taught their children; even untrained, most had not been strong enough to prove a true danger to themselves or those around them. 

But, once every few centuries, there had been a Saoirse.

Taranis could not claim to understand why magic was stronger in some mortals than in others. He certainly did not know why it ran with such ferocity through her entire family, but the ‘why’ was ultimately immaterial. Whatever the source, little Saoirse possessed a gift that could all too easily make her inner hurricane a reality — perilous enough on its own, but this strange blankness that lurked in her mind made her doubly so.

Behind her sat Lorna, still and silent, watching the girl with one glittering green eye; Taranis was here to teach, but it was Lorna’s task to observe. He had spoken truth when he told her that his mental abilities were unlike hers, and his understanding of the human mind was dangerously imperfect. He could speak, and he could to a point observe, but there was little in which he dared interfere. 

_ The storm is part of you, Saoirse. It is as innate as the blood that flows through your veins, just as it is part of the air around you. You contain it well, but your method is flawed. _

Her brow wrinkled, and he took both her hands in his — such tiny hands they were. The entirety of one would barely fill his palm. Though the strength of her gift was formidable, she was still human, limited by her mortal form — she would never be able to reach the level of his ability, for it would destroy her. 

_ Let loose your tempest, little one. You cannot harm me, and I will not let you harm any others. _

The tension in the girl’s posture, subtle though it was, eased somewhat. Just how frightened of her own ability had she truly been? She had learned as well as she was able, but from teachers who simply were not equipped to instruct her, and how could she have asked for greater guidance? Among her own kind, there had been no others. She had been alone, through no fault of herself or any of those around her.

But the strain left her now, as the tangled force of her ability ran into his. Contrary to mythology, the gods rarely bore children, but little Saoirse was very much like a child of his spirit. 

_ You are safe. Release it all, and rest your mind. _

He did not expect what followed, though he was also not entirely surprised. With the easing of herself-control, there came the blankness, subsuming all that made her _ Saoirse _. Taranis had seen few (precious few) others of her power, but this strange and terrible emptiness was unknown to him.

Her consciousness flickered — the switch Lorna had put into her mind had not, it seemed, been in vain — but it did not sever utterly. If he controlled her gift, Lorna had seized control of her mind, in a grasp gentle as a cloud but firm as iron.

This, too, was new to him. Throughout all of history, he had paid little heed to the handful of mental manipulators who crossed his path, but Lorna was another who seemed limited only by the frailty of her human body. Like Saoirse, her soul burned far too brightly — if her form had not deliberately hobbled it, it would consume her.

Her thought and will now wrapped around Saoirse’s like a cocoon, and Taranis watched, intrigued. He dared not follow her delicate, branching search of the child’s mind, lest he leave some manner of damage in his wake; what she sought, he did not know, and she had yet to say much at all about how she managed her own strange affliction.

_ Taranis, look through my eyes, but promise me that you won’t reveal anything to anyone else. I need your input, but you’re maybe going to learn some things I’ve never shared. Saoirse can’t hear me — she’s in neutral right now. _Lorna’s expression was impossible for even him to read.

_ I lack your precision, Lorna. I fear I might harm you. _

Her good eye met his. _ You won’t. _

Somehow, he believed her.

~

Lorna really wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this. What she summoned now was a thing she had never shown anyone, ever; though she did her best to divorce the memory from the incident that had directly _ caused _it.

It had been a very long time since she’d thought on what Von Rached had done to her in his office, after that first, mass escape attempt from the Institute. The memory of his it was no less disgusting for it having been purely mental — he’d hijacked her mind to get her off in some sort of twisted, inexplicable punishment. In a truly awful way, he’d done her a favor — he’d traumatized her into erecting a mental barrier he couldn’t breach, but that hadn't been all. For the first time, she’d been able to cage the Blank, even if she hadn't wholly done it of her own volition. It too had been largely instinct, but she’d _ done _it — though she’d attacked him, for once she had been the one in the driver’s seat.

_ Only once the ice of her remembered rage filled her mind did she allow him into her memory — rage so cold it burned. To this day Lorna was unsure just what Von Rached had intended to accomplish, but it could not possibly have been what actually resulted. If he’d intended her to feel like some form of prey, it had backfired utterly: the first thoughts of her newly protected mind had been of pure murder, predatory and powerful. Only sheer luck had saved his life — two more bites and she might have gnawed right through his carotid artery. _

_ The Blank had risen, or tried to. What Lorna captured, what she shared as best she could, was the single, sharp, crystal-pure moment in which she took hold of the thing and held it at bay. For that brief, all-too-transitory instant, her mind passed through rage, out into some serene valley on the other side. Within that valley there was neither pain nor shame nor fear — only a steadfast conviction that the bastard would die by her hand, and hers alone, without the aid or hindrance of the Blank. In that strange tranquility beyond the border of her wrath, there had been a power and surety unlike anything she had ever known. All she had endured after that had merely been a delay. _

You live now because _ I allow it. The words swirled in Lorna’s mind, woven among the memory of their final confrontation in the wilderness. Around them, an inferno roared, driving away the frigidity of a Canadian winter night. Blood sang in her veins with each beat of her heart, half-drunk on adrenaline, but again, her mind was poised on the edge of some bastard form of calm. _

I can’t traumatize my nieces, but maybe I don't need to. Maybe I can teach them to feel this, to really _ know _ it...if I can teach it in a vacuum. If I can separate it from the cause. _ How she was to do that, she had no idea. And until she did, her theory would have to remain untested. _

Would it be so terrible, if they knew? _ Taranis’ words were warm in her mind — and his tone betrayed a total lack of understanding. _

_ Lorna had to remind herself that he wasn’t human, and thus would be unlikely to truly comprehend what he had just said. _ It would be _ beyond _ terrible, _ she said. _ Christ, where do I start? Sharley might know what happened, but nobody else does — I’ve never even told Ratiri. And while I don't know my elder niece well enough to know if she can keep a secret or not, I’m bloody well aware that Saoirse can’t keep her mouth shut. If she knows something, everyone knows it. _ The mere thought sent a tendril of panic through her, squeezing at her heart. _

_ Of course, there was a potential solution to that problem, but it was not one she wished to contemplate. It would be all too easy to simply take the offending bits of information and erase them from both girls’ minds. No muss, no fuss — just a surgically-precise excision of memory. It would take her all of ten seconds...and it went against everything Lorna stood for. There had been precious few times she’d been willing to violate her self-imposed rules, and she had never done so to an innocent. Thorvald, Ashley — they had been monsters, and violating their minds had been a necessity. She could justify both. Her nieces, on the other hand, were blameless young women — one was little more than a child, for fuck’s sake. _

Lorna, I know something of what you have endured, _ Taranis said. _ You killed Thorvald. You passed through the veil of death and returned. Why, then, does this horrify you so?

_It was a question Lorna could not immediately answer. _Because it doesn’t affect just me, _she said at last. _Saoirse especially is too damn young to even know that, let alone potentially witness it in my memory and be allowed to remember it herself. The whole point is to do this _without_ traumatizing them. _In theory, she would have a quite valid cause to alter both girls’ memories if necessary — certainly, nobody could possibly argue the need with Saoirse. Neat, tidy, ends-justifying-means reasoning that no one but she even need know about...except if she kept finding good reasons to flex her telepathy, sooner or later she might well invent bad ones. That even yet she felt no qualm or remorse over what she had done to Ashley did not bode well. Oh, she regretted the _necessity_, but the act itself? Not a whit. And that was frightening in a way she suspected very few would truly understand._

A worthy consideration, _ he said, _and yet that does not account for the fear in your heart.

_ Lorna scowled. Perhaps it didn't, but her reasons were enough in their own right, without dragging anything more personal into it. _Is that supposed to matter? Does it change anything?

Only you can answer that question, Lorna. Think on it.

“Later,” Lorna said aloud, and sighed. Saoirse still sat in neutral, and she couldn't be left there forever.

~ 

Much later, when Lorna and Saoirse returned to the house, the former still wondered. Why _ did _she fear it so? Taranis was right — she had endured so much worse. Yes, at that moment she had lost to Von Rached, but it wasn’t like he hadn't overpowered hundreds — if not thousands — of other people. What he’d done to her mind was disgusting, but it had only been mental, and it hadn't even lasted very long. (She was certain there had to be a very morbid joke in there somewhere, but only Kurt would ever actually utter it.)

It was Sharley that she sought, once everyone else had gone to bed. The woman had a fascination with stars, since the Other had none, and often spent clear nights watching them on the lawn. Sharley was a bit too dead to care about things like the chill of a mountain night, or how clammy and unpleasant it was to sit on grass after dewfall, but Lorna was wise enough to bring a blanket.

Her question did not seem quite so terrible in the starlight, but she nevertheless asked it through the silence of telepathy.

Sharley’s odd eyes glittered bright in the dark. “Walk with me, Lorna. I won’t let you trip.”

When she rose, Lorna followed, and fought unease. Neither woman spoke until they were well past the edge of the yard, beneath the trees.

“All right, Sharley, allanah, I’m not going to like what you’ve got to say, am I? If you’ve got to drag me out here to say it, it can’t be anything good.” Lorna was glad she’d swathed herself in the blanket, because it was even chillier inside the forest proper.

“Probably not,” was Sharley’s frank reply. “Lorna...you do understand what Von Rached did to your mind was rape, right?”

Lorna blinked. “No it wasn’t,” she said. “He didn't do anything physical. Well, he bled a lot, but that came after.” The only thing that counted as rape was, well, the actual thing — right? Nasty as it was, it had only been in her head. That was...far less horrible than what he’d done a few months later.

For whatever reason, Sharley didn't argue. “Well, there’s a few possible answers,” she said instead. “The one that makes the most sense is, you don't want anyone wondering why he’d have picked _ that _in the first place, when he coulda done so many other things instead. Or why you’re the only one he did it to.”

“I’ve got a pretty good guess there,” Lorna said darkly. “Bloody creep. He was smart enough not to try anything physical, but he got the next best thing, now didn't he?”

“Actually...no,” Sharley said. “I mean, his reason was just as gross, it just wasn’t _ that _. He didn't want to do that himself — he just thought it was the only way he could make you behave, since you didn't care if you got hurt, and hurting your friends would’ve just pissed you off.”

That...made a seriously awful amount of sense. _ Ew _ . Though now that she thought about it, hadn't he said something very like that? _ There are things I could do to you in which you would take no pride, _or something like that. And Jesus, hadn't he been right...no wonder she’d never told anyone. 

“Well,” she said aloud, “_ that _ one sure as fuck backfired on him.” And gross as it was, she couldn't help but laugh. Fucker thought he’d break her, and instead she’d tried to rip his throat out. _ Whoops. _

“He did have pretty terrible judgment when it came to, well, everything to do with you,” Sharley mused. “But Lorna, let me ask you something: if you really don't think it was rape, why the hell are you so ashamed of it?”

That Lorna’s knee-jerk reaction to that question was immediate anger probably did not bode well. _ Immediate _anger, hot and prickly and utterly defensive. She had no answer for it, either.

“I think you’ve always known what it really was, because it’s not like you’ve ever been ashamed of anything else,” Sharley said. “Not even that time you got high on LSD and decided you were a kraken.”

“Oh good Jesus, did you have to remind me’v that one?” It certainly had not been one of her finer moments, and yet Sharley was right. The memory made her cringe, and yet there was no actual shame attached to it. It certainly wasn’t one she felt any actual need to keep secret. “Okay, so say you’re right — which, I’m not saying you _ are _, but for the sake’v argument, let’s pretend. Does that really affect anything? Even if I wasn’t ashamed’v it, that still wouldn’t make the risk’v an actual child seeing it any better. I mean Christ, Sharley, you’ve got to have seen it in my history.” And no, she wasn’t at all happy about it, but Sharley was what she was. She couldn't have avoided that even if she’d wanted to.

“I’m not saying you’re without a point,” Sharley said. “I’m saying there’s nuances here that you probably oughtta not ignore.”

“Sharley…” There was possibly no point in asking this question, since Sharley so very rarely even gave hints about the potential future, but Lorna asked it anyway. “If I do this, and I go in and...edit...anything Saoirse and Lorna the Younger might see, could it backfire? On me, or on them?”

Sharley was silent for so long that it seemed she wasn’t going to answer. “It...might,” she said at last. “It goes wrong in more potentialities than it goes right.”

“If I do it and _ don't _edit, does it ever go right?”

Again, Sharley paused. “You had the idea for a reason,” she said. “And I’ve never known you to avoid doing something good just because doing it might cost you.”

That she’d offered even that much was honestly a minor miracle, and Lorna didn't press further. What was maddening was that she was right, too: skipping something just because it might harm her had never been Lorna’s style. That was not, however necessarily a good thing — and it wasn’t just her that might be harmed. Saoirse was not old enough to understand what she’d be theoretically consenting to potentially witness. Her elder sister, perhaps unfortunately, was.

_ Look on the bright side, _ Lorna told herself. _ Maybe Lorna the Younger’ll say ‘no’ once she’s warned she might have to deal with something nasty. _Should that prove the case, well, Lorna would be off the hook. ‘No’ was ‘no’, plain and simple. She respected that, even if the concept had never entered Von Rached’s head.

~

Mairead sat awake long after everyone else had gone to bed. Aunt Sharley had taken Marty up to the DMA after dinner — a thing so unusual at that time in the evening that Mairead suspected her aunt knew what she was up to, and had decided not to interfere.

Not until after midnight did she move — it took that long for her cousin to actually go to sleep, but at least the rest of the household had dropped off before her. Mairead crept on silent feet, and was rather glad her cousin slept with the door cracked — everyone in the house did, because the cats would paw at any closed door until the room’s exasperated occupant opened it.

Lorna the Younger was still something of a mystery. Mairead hadn't spent a great deal of time around her — partly because their schedules rarely overlapped, but also partly because nobody wanted to overwhelm the poor woman with, well, Donovans. She looked like them, but her only association with the name ‘Donovan’ had, until fairly recently, been Uncle Pat, and that was a sticky subject that Mairead for one was just not willing to touch. She and Jerry had been separated from their parents for a time, but that hadn't been voluntary on anyone’s part.

But her cousin slept soundly enough at the moment; Boo, their little tortie, had curled up between her feet. Mairead didn't trust the desk chair not to creak, so she sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, obscured enough that even should Lorna wake, she wouldn’t immediately spot her uninvited guest. Whatever she dreamt of, it didn't seem to trouble her.

_ I want to know. I want to see. _Indeed, the strength of Mairead’s desire to dig through her cousin’s head disturbed her. Where was this coming from? It had not, until very recently, been difficult to abide by her mam’s rules — there wasn’t really any temptation. Simple curiosity could usually be satisfied by other, mundane means, because it was amazing how open people were when they didn't know you were there.

Now, though… It wasn’t even as though she thought Lorna the Younger’s mind would hold anything really interesting, because she didn't. This itch to look had no logical source. Part of her wanted to ask Mam if this was something she’d ever gone through, but the rest of her was afraid to — if the answer was ‘no’, Mairead would suddenly stand out in a big, bad way. _ No thanks. _

She forced herself to lurk outside the edges of her cousin’s mind, even if she had to dig into the web of her left thumb and forefinger to stay focused. _ It’ll be worth it. I’m not just fucking around. I’m doing this for a goddamn reason. _

The night ticked on; through the window, the silver square of moonlight tracked along the wall. She was just about to give up when something alien whispered around her thoughts. 

_ Oh, no you don't. _She had one shot at this tonight — if she failed, she’d have to try again the next night, and the next, and meanwhile try to fit in some sleep— 

_ Gotcha. _Triumph surged through her, and with it a peculiar sort of giddiness. Never, ever had she been so aware of her own Gift — of the strength that flowed through her mind, and possibly through her soul. It seized her entire being with a totality that was almost frightening, even as she trapped this invader in a telepathic grip of iron.

She was not at all surprised by the alien panic that shivered within her mind; what _ did _surprise her was its brevity. Her prisoner struggled only momentarily, but Mairead did not for a second believe it had given up. The amount of foreign power trapped by her telepathy was so intense that it seemed a miracle she could contain it.

_ Who are you? _

For a very long moment, there was no reply. _ A friend, _ it said. _ A guardian. _

Mairead frowned. The mental voice was utterly unfamiliar — an adult male, American in accent. Somewhat deep, but totally unremarkable.

_ Who, _ she repeated, _ are you? What is your name? _

_ I have no name. I am not human. Your cousin is a danger to herself and all around her. Your family is powerful — this you surely know. _

On the surface, it didn't seem implausible — hadn't Taranis showed up because of Saoirse? His...area of expertise...aligned with hers, but Mairead had never heard of any gods of telepathy, but that didn't mean none existed. It was, however, a little too neat and tidy.

_ You can’t contain the Blank, _ she said. _ It can’t be done. I’ve seen what happens when someone tries, and it’s not pretty. It’s sure as hell not safe. _

Again, there was a pause — this time so long she wondered if her prisoner had given up. _ I know, _ it — he — said at last. _ I have seen it as well. _

The voice’s tone was unreadable, but that in itself was suggestive. It certainly gave Mairead pause. _ Seen it? Or caused it? _

Silence.

_ You got into my head, too, and that is not an easy thing to do. Why? I don't have the Blank. Not all of us do. Any guardian worth their salt should know that. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t trap you here forever. _She was almost certainly unable to actually do so, but this supposed guardian didn't need to know that. How it responded would tell her...something.

This time, the answer was immediate. _ You stand at the edge of a dangerous path, Mairead. You have the ability to do a very great deal of damage, and those with the most power must take the most care with it. Your craving to _ know _ will only grow with time, and you above all must never give in to it. _

Mairead sat very still; for the first time, genuine fear stirred within her. Had this person crept into her mind without her awareness, and only revealed himself when he wished to? The thought sent ice cascading through her veins. He could, of course, be guessing — but if so, it was an unnervingly good guess.

_ I was not in your mind, Mairead, but I did not need to be. Your mother has told you that telepathy is addictive, and she is right, but she cannot know the whole of it because she has never succumbed to the lure you feel. Have you any idea what happens, when a powerful telepath abuses their Gift? _

_ No, _she said, and she genuinely didn't.

_ The man who held you captive was the embodiment of the perils of unfettered telepathy. He used his as naturally and automatically as breathing, and look at what he became. He would have been unable to function without it. In plain English, Mairead, he cheated, and you are better than that. You are your mother’s daughter, no matter how your interests and aptitudes might differ. _

Her eyes widened; whatever she’d been expecting, that was not it. Was this craving of hers somehow Doctor Man’s fault? Had he rubbed off on her in some way? Mairead wanted to dismiss it utterly, but her memory meant that she had never forgotten the warning he’d given her aboard Jary’s ship — it had been nearly identical to this one, actually.

Wait.

Dread of a sort she had never actually known now squeezed at her heart, as her mind shied away from a possibility she absolutely did not want to consider. _ You stay away from my cousin. I don't know who you are and I don't want to — just _ stay away. _ Let Mam deal with this. _

It was as strident a command as she could muster, but it was not one she could actually back up, and this ‘guardian’ likely knew it. Her mother, however, was more than capable — if this twat wanted to tangle with her, it was his metaphorical funeral.

Before he could respond, Mairead flung him from her mind. The terrible vice around her heart squeezed tighter, and she wondered what on Earth she was going to do. 

_ I can’t take this to Mam or Jerry. I can’t. _It was utterly out of the question. Aunt Sharley, however...even if she said nothing, at least she’d be a listening ear. If nothing else, it would mean Mairead wasn’t stuck with this all on her own.

She drew a deep breath, and crept out of her cousin’s room on silent feet. If sleep was to at all be found tonight, she’d be very surprised.

~

Von Rached had not anticipated that. Not remotely. He’d known his daughter was stronger than she knew, but not _ that _strong. Though he wanted to believe he could have escaped her mental trap, he could not, in honesty, be certain.

_ Even were I able, I would have to irreparably harm her to do it. _If she could do that now, when she was little more than a child, who knew what she’d be capable of as an adult? Not him, certainly, but he doubted even the Lady would know.

Now what was he to do? Her one stipulation had been that no one discover his identity. Mairead could not actually be _ certain _of anything, but the fact that the possibility had even occurred to her was more than bad enough. Fortunately for him, there was not one shred of evidence in the known world to support the idea of interference from beyond the grave; in the cold, sober light of day, the idea would seem ludicrous.

For the first time, he wished he possessed Sharley’s ability. Even if she was cursed to almost never know the future with certainty, she was able to map out potentialities. Then again, she was also cursed to see the past, so perhaps he was better off unaware of just how disastrously this could have gone. It had been bad enough as it was.


End file.
